## Algebra & Number Theory

### Steinberg groups as amalgams

Daniel Allcock

#### Abstract

For any root system and any commutative ring, we give a relatively simple presentation of a group related to its Steinberg group $St$. This includes the case of infinite root systems used in Kac–Moody theory, for which the Steinberg group was defined by Tits and Morita–Rehmann. In most cases, our group equals $St$, giving a presentation with many advantages over the usual presentation of $St$. This equality holds for all spherical root systems, all irreducible affine root systems of rank $> 2$, and all $3$-spherical root systems. When the coefficient ring satisfies a minor condition, the last condition can be relaxed to $2$-sphericity.

Our presentation is defined in terms of the Dynkin diagram rather than the full root system. It is concrete, with no implicit coefficients or signs. It makes manifest the exceptional diagram automorphisms in characteristics $2$ and $3$, and their generalizations to Kac–Moody groups. And it is a Curtis–Tits style presentation: it is the direct limit of the groups coming from $1$- and $2$-node subdiagrams of the Dynkin diagram. Over nonfields this description as a direct limit is new and surprising. Our main application is that many Steinberg and Kac–Moody groups over finitely generated rings are finitely presented.

#### Article information

Source
Algebra Number Theory, Volume 10, Number 8 (2016), 1791-1843.

Dates
Accepted: 11 June 2016
First available in Project Euclid: 16 November 2017

https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.ant/1510842588

Digital Object Identifier
doi:10.2140/ant.2016.10.1791

Mathematical Reviews number (MathSciNet)
MR3556798

Zentralblatt MATH identifier
1360.19003

Subjects
Primary: 19C99: None of the above, but in this section
Secondary: 20G44: Kac-Moody groups 14L15: Group schemes

#### Citation

Allcock, Daniel. Steinberg groups as amalgams. Algebra Number Theory 10 (2016), no. 8, 1791--1843. doi:10.2140/ant.2016.10.1791. https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.ant/1510842588

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