Rost’s Chain Lemma

Abstract

This chapter states and proves Rost's Chain Lemma. The proof (due to Markus Rost) does not use the inductive assumption that BL(n − 1) holds. Throughout this chapter, 𝓁 is a fixed prime, and 𝑘 is a field containing 1/𝓁 and all 𝓁th roots of unity. It fixes an integer 𝑛 ≥ 2 and an 𝑛-tuple (𝑎1, ..., 𝑎𝑛) of units in 𝑘, such that the symbol ª = {𝑎1, ..., 𝑎𝑛} is nontrivial in the Milnor 𝐾-group 𝐾𝑀 𝑛(𝑘)/𝓁. The chapter produces the statement of the Chain Lemma by first proving the special case 𝑛 = 2. The notion of an 𝓁-form on a locally free sheaf over 𝑆 is then introduced, before the chapter shows how 𝓁-forms may be used to define elements of 𝐾𝑀 𝑛(𝑘(𝑆))/𝓁.