Constructions of Brauer-Severi Varieties and Norm Hypersurfaces

Abstract

Let k be any field, A a central simple k-algebra of degree m (i.e., dimk A = m2). Several methods of constructing the generic splitting fields for A are proposed and Saltman proves that these methods result in almost the same generic splitting field [8, Theorems 4.2 and 4.4]. In fact, the generic splitting field constructed by Roquette [7] is the function field of the Brauer- Severi variety Vm(A) while the generic splitting field constructed by Heuser and Saltman [4 and 8] is the function field of the norm surface W(A). In this paper, to avoid possible confusion about the dimension, we shall call it the norm hypersurface instead of the norm surface.