We consider certain Massey products in the cohomology of a Galois extension of fields with coefficients in p-power roots of unity. We prove formulas for these products both in general and in the special case that the Galois extension in question is the maximal extension of a number field unramified outside a set of primes S including those above p and any archimedean places. We then consider those Z_p-Kummer extensions L of the maximal p-cyclotomic extension K of a number field that are unramified outside S. We show that Massey products describe the structure of a certain "decomposition-free" quotient of a graded piece of the maximal unramified abelian pro-p extension of L in which all primes above those in S split completely, with the grading arising from the augmentation filtration on the group ring of the Galois group of L/K. We explicitly describe examples of the maximal unramified abelian pro-p extensions of unramified outside p Kummer extensions of the cyclotomic field of all p-power roots of unity, for irregular primes p.
Let $K$ be a global field which contains a primitive $p$-th root of unity, where $p$ is a prime number. M. J. Hopkins and K. G. Wickelgren showed that for $p=2$, any triple Massey product over $K$ with respect to $\mathbb{F}_p$, contains 0 whenever it is defined. We show that this is true for all primes $p$.
Let p be a prime number and F a field containing a root of unity of order p. We relate recent results on vanishing of triple Massey products in the mod-p Galois cohomology of F, due to Hopkins, Wickelgren, Minac, and Tan, to classical results in the theory of central simple algebras. For global fields, we prove a stronger form of the vanishing property.
We prove the Massey Vanishing Conjecture for $n=4$ and $p=2$. That is, we show that for all fields $F$, if a fourfold Massey product modulo $2$ is defined over $F$, then it vanishes over $F$.
For $m\geq2$, let $F$ be a field of characteristic prime to $m$ and containing the roots of unity of order $m$, and let $G_F$ be its absolute Galois group. We show that the 3-fold Massey products $\langleχ_1,χ_2,χ_3\rangle$, with $χ_1,χ_2,χ_3\in H^1(G_F,\mathbb{Z}/m)$ and $χ_1,χ_3$ $\mathbb{Z}/m$-linearly independent, are non-essential. This was earlier proved for $m$ prime. Our proof is based on the study of unitriangular representations of $G_F$.
Let $p$ be a prime number, $F$ a field containing a root of unity of order $p$, and $G_F$ the absolute Galois group. Extending results of Hopkins, Wickelgren, Minac and Tan, we prove that the triple Massey product $H^1(G_F)^3\to H^2(G_F)$ contains $0$ whenever it is nonempty. This gives a new restriction on the possible profinite group structure of $G_F$.
We show that any triple Massey product with respect to prime 2 contains 0 whenever it is defined over any field. This extends the theorem of M. J. Hopkins and K. G. Wickelgren, from global fields to any fields. This is the first time when the vanishing of any $n$-Massey product for some prime $p$ has been established for all fields. This leads to a strong restriction on the shape of relations in the maximal pro-2-quotients of absolute Galois groups, which was out of reach until now. We also develop an extension of Serre's transgression method to detect triple commutators in relations of pro-$p…
We consider the p-Zassenhaus filtration (G_n) of a profinite group G. Suppose that G=S/N for a free profinite group S and a normal subgroup N of S contained in S_n. Under a cohomological assumption on the n-fold Massey products (which holds e.g., if the p-cohomological dimension of G is at most 1), we prove that G_{n+1} is the intersection of all kernels of upper-triangular unipotent (n+1)-dimensional representations of G over \mathbb F_p. This extends earlier results by Minac, Spira, and the author on the structure of absolute Galois groups of fields.
We use Massey products and their relations to unipotent representations to parametrize and find an explicit formula for the number of Galois extensions of a given local field with the prescribed Galois group ${\mathbb U}_4({\mathbb F}_p)$ consisting of unipotent four by four matrices over ${\mathbb F}_p$. Further applications of this method involve the counting of certain Galois extensions with restricted ramifications, and counting the numbers of Galois ${\mathbb U}_4({\mathbb F}_p)$-extensions of some other fields. For each Demushkin pro-$p$-group, we find a very simple version of the condit…
We show that the absolute Galois group of any field has the vanishing triple Massey product property. Several corollaries for the structure of maximal pro-$p$-quotient of absolute Galois groups are deduced. Furthermore, the vanishing of some higher Massey products is proved.
Generalizing math.AG/0003076 we express universal triple Massey products between line bundles on elliptic curves in terms of Hecke's indefinite theta series. We show that all Hecke's indefinite theta series arise in this way.
We study the vanishing of four-fold Massey products in mod p Galois cohomology. First, we describe a sufficient condition, which is simply expressed by the vanishing of some cup-products, in direct analogy with the work of Guillot, Mináč and Topaz for p=2. For local fields with enough roots of unity, we prove that this sufficient condition is also necessary, and we ask whether this is a general fact. We provide a simple splitting variety, that is, a variety which has a rational point if and only if our sufficient condition is satisfied. It has rational points over local fields, and so, if it s…
A major difficult problem in Galois theory is the characterization of profinite groups which are realizable as absolute Galois groups of fields. Recently the Kernel $n$-Unipotent Conjecture and the Vanishing $n$-Massey Conjecture for $n\geq 3$ were formulated. These conjectures evolved in the last forty years as a byproduct of the application of topological methods to Galois cohomology. We show that both of these conjectures are true for odd rigid fields. This is the first case of a significant family of fields where both of the conjectures are verified besides fields whose Galois groups of $p…
For an elliptic curve over Q of analytic rank 1, we use the level-two Selmer variety and secondary cohomology products to find explicit analytic defining equations for global integral points inside the set of p-adic points.
In this paper, we develop a new necessary and sufficient condition for the vanishing of 4-Massey products of elements in the mod-2 Galois cohomology of a field. This new description allows us to define a splitting variety for 4-Massey products, which is shown in the Appendix to satisfy a local-to-global principle over number fields. As a consequence, we prove that, for a number field, all such 4-Massey products vanish whenever they are defined. This provides new explicit restrictions on the structure of absolute Galois groups of number fields.
We construct splitting varieties for triple Massey products. For a,b,c in F^* the triple Massey product < a,b,c> of the corresponding elements of H^1(F, mu_2) contains 0 if and only if there is x in F^* and y in F[\sqrt{a}, \sqrt{c}]^* such that b x^2 = N_{F[\sqrt{a}, \sqrt{c}]/F}(y), where N_{F[\sqrt{a}, \sqrt{c}]/F} denotes the norm, and F is a field of characteristic different from 2. These varieties satisfy the Hasse principle by a result of D.B. Lee and A.R. Wadsworth. This shows that triple Massey products for global fields of characteristic different from 2 always contain 0.
Given a profinite group G of finite p-cohomological dimension and a pro-p quotient H of G by a closed normal subgroup N, we study the filtration on the Iwasawa cohomology of N by powers of the augmentation ideal in the group algebra of H. We show that the graded pieces are related to the cohomology of G via analogues of Bockstein maps for the powers of the augmentation ideal. For certain groups H, we relate the values of these generalized Bockstein maps to Massey products relative to a restricted class of defining systems depending on H. We apply our study to prove lower bounds on the p-ranks …
We provide an explicit algorithm to compute a Massey triple product relative to a defining system for a smooth projective plane curve $X$ defined by a homogeneous polynomial $G(\underline x)$ over a field. The main idea is to use the description (due to Carlson and Griffiths) of the cup product for $H^1(X,\mathbb{C})$ in terms of the multiplications inside the Jacobian ring of $G(\underline x)$ and the Cech-deRham complex of $X$. Our algorithm gives a criterion whether a Massey triple product vanishes or not in $H^2(X)$ under a particular non-trivial defining system of the Massey triple produc…
For all primes $p$ and all fields, we find a sufficient and necessary condition of the existence of a unipotent Galois extension of degree $p^6$. The main goal of this paper is to describe an explicit construction of such a Galois extension over fields admitting such a Galois extension. This construction is surprising in its simplicity and generality. The problem of finding such a construction has been left open since 2003. Recently a possible solution of this problem gained urgency because of an effort to extend new advances in Galois theory and its relations with Massey products in Galois co…
Let pi be a pro-l completion of a free group, and let G be a profinite group acting continuously on pi. First suppose the action is given by a character. Then the boundary maps delta_n: H^1(G, pi/[pi]_n) -> H^2(G, [pi]_n/[pi]_{n+1}) are Massey products. When the action is more general, we partially compute these boundary maps. Via obstructions of Jordan Ellenberg, this implies that pi_1 sections of P^1_k-{0,1,infty} satisfy the condition that associated nth order Massey products in Galois cohomology vanish. For the pi_1 sections coming from rational points, these conditions imply that < (1-x)^…
For $x$ an element of a field other than $0$ or $1$, we compute the order $n$ Massey products $$\langle (1-x)^{-1}, x^{-1}, \ldots, x^{-1}, (1-x)^{-1} \rangle$$ of $n-2$ factors of $x^{-1}$ and two factors of $(1-x)^{-1}$ by embedding $\mathbb{P}^1 - \{0,1,\infty\}$ into its Picard variety and constructing $\operatorname{Gal}(k^s/k)$ equivariant maps from $π_1$ applied to this embedding to unipotent matrix groups. This method produces obstructions to $π_1$-sections of $\mathbb{P}^1 - \{0,1,\infty\}$, partial computations of obstructions of Jordan Ellenberg, and also computes the Massey product…
A conjecture of Mináč and Tân predicts that for any n>2, any prime p and any field k, the Massey product of n Galois cohomology classes in H^1(k,Z/pZ) must vanish if it is defined. We establish this conjecture when k is a number field.
Translating results due to J. Labute into group cohomological language, A. Schmidt proved that a finitely presented pro-p-group G is mild and hence of cohomological dimension cd G=2 if $H^1(G,\F_p)=U\oplus V$ as $\F_p$-vector space and the cup-product $H^1(G,\F_p)\otimes H^1(G,\F_p)\to H^2(G,\F_p)$ maps $U\otimes V$ surjectively onto $H^2(G,\F_p)$ and is identically zero on $V\otimes V$. This has led to important results in the study of p-extensions of number fields with restricted ramification, in particular in the case of tame ramification. In this paper, we extend Labute's theory of mild pr…
Let p be a prime. We study pro-p groups of p-absolute Galois type, as defined by Lam-Liu-Sharifi-Wake-Wang. We prove that the pro-p completion of the right-angled Artin group associated to a chordal simplicial graph is of p-absolute Galois type, and moreover it satisfies a strong version of the Massey vanishing property. Also, we prove that Demushkin groups are of p-absolute Galois type, and that the free pro-p product -- and, under certain conditions, the direct product -- of two pro-p groups of p-absolute Galois type satisfying the Massey vanishing property is again a pro-p group of p-absolu…
Generalizing results of Morishita and Vogel, an explicit description of the triple Massey product for the Galois group $G_S(2)$ of the maximal 2-extension of $\mathbb{Q}$ unramified outside a finite set of prime numbers $S$ containing 2 is given in terms of Rédei symbols. We show that mild pro-2-groups with Zassenhaus invariant 3 occur as Galois groups of the form $G_S(2)$. Furthermore, a non-analytic mild fab pro-2-group having only 3 generators is constructed .
We make a systematic study of filtrations of a free group F defined as products of powers of the lower central series of F. Under some assumptions on the exponents, we characterize these filtrations in terms of the group algebra, the Magnus algebra of non-commutative power series, and linear representations by upper-triangular unipotent matrices. These characterizations generalize classical results of Grun, Magnus, Witt, and Zassenhaus from the 1930's, as well as later results on the lower p-central filtration and the p-Zassenhaus filtrations. We derive alternative recursive definitions of suc…
Let $p$ be a prime. We produce two new families of pro-$p$ groups which are not realizable as absolute Galois groups of fields. To prove this we use the 1-smoothness property of absolute Galois pro-$p$ groups. Moreover, we show in these families one has one-relator pro-$p$ groups which may not be ruled out as absolute Galois groups employing the quadraticity of Galois cohomology (a consequence of Rost-Voevodsky Theorem), or the vanishing of Massey products in Galois cohomology.
We propose an approach to study non-Abelian Iwasawa theory, using the idea of Johnson homomorphisms in low dimensional topology. We introduce arithmetic analogues of Johnson homomorphisms/maps, called the p-Johnson homomorphisms/maps, associated to the Zassenhaus filtration of a pro-p Galois group over a Z_p-extension of a number field. We give their cohomological interpretation in terms of Massey products in Galois cohomology.
