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Group scheme

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Group scheme

In mathematics, a group scheme is a type of object from algebraic geometry equipped with a composition law. Group schemes arise naturally as symmetries of schemes, and they generalize algebraic groups, in the sense that all algebraic groups have group scheme structure, but group schemes are not necessarily connected, smooth, or defined over a field. This extra generality allows one to study richer infinitesimal structures, and this can help one to understand and answer questions of arithmetic significance. The category of group schemes is somewhat better behaved than that of group varieties, since all homomorphisms have kernels, and there is a well-behaved deformation theory. Group schemes that are not algebraic groups play a significant role in arithmetic geometry and algebraic topology, since they come up in contexts of Galois representations and moduli problems. The initial development of the theory of group schemes was due to Alexander Grothendieck, Michel Raynaud and Michel Demazure in the early 1960s.

A group scheme is a group object in a category of schemes that has fiber products and some final object S. That is, it is an S-scheme G equipped with one of the equivalent sets of data

A homomorphism of group schemes is a map of schemes that respects multiplication. This can be precisely phrased either by saying that a map f satisfies the equation fμ = μ(f × f), or by saying that f is a natural transformation of functors from schemes to groups (rather than just sets).

A left action of a group scheme G on a scheme X is a morphism G ×S XX that induces a left action of the group G(T) on the set X(T) for any S-scheme T. Right actions are defined similarly. Any group scheme admits natural left and right actions on its underlying scheme by multiplication and conjugation. Conjugation is an action by automorphisms, i.e., it commutes with the group structure, and this induces linear actions on naturally derived objects, such as its Lie algebra, and the algebra of left-invariant differential operators.

An S-group scheme G is commutative if the group G(T) is an abelian group for all S-schemes T. There are several other equivalent conditions, such as conjugation inducing a trivial action, or inversion map ι being a group scheme automorphism.

Suppose that G is a group scheme of finite type over a field k. Let G0 be the connected component of the identity, i.e., the maximal connected subgroup scheme. Then G is an extension of a finite étale group scheme by G0. G has a unique maximal reduced subscheme Gred, and if k is perfect, then Gred is a smooth group variety that is a subgroup scheme of G. The quotient scheme is the spectrum of a local ring of finite rank.

Any affine group scheme is the spectrum of a commutative Hopf algebra (over a base S, this is given by the relative spectrum of an OS-algebra). The multiplication, unit, and inverse maps of the group scheme are given by the comultiplication, counit, and antipode structures in the Hopf algebra. The unit and multiplication structures in the Hopf algebra are intrinsic to the underlying scheme. For an arbitrary group scheme G, the ring of global sections also has a commutative Hopf algebra structure, and by taking its spectrum, one obtains the maximal affine quotient group. Affine group varieties are known as linear algebraic groups, since they can be embedded as subgroups of general linear groups.

Complete connected group schemes are in some sense opposite to affine group schemes, since the completeness implies all global sections are exactly those pulled back from the base, and in particular, they have no nontrivial maps to affine schemes. Any complete group variety (variety here meaning reduced and geometrically irreducible separated scheme of finite type over a field) is automatically commutative, by an argument involving the action of conjugation on jet spaces of the identity. Complete group varieties are called abelian varieties. This generalizes to the notion of abelian scheme; a group scheme G over a base S is abelian if the structural morphism from G to S is proper and smooth with geometrically connected fibers. They are automatically projective, and they have many applications, e.g., in geometric class field theory and throughout algebraic geometry. A complete group scheme over a field need not be commutative, however; for example, any finite group scheme is complete.

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