The Serre-Rost Invariant of Albert Algebras in Characteristic three

The authors have recently developed an elementary approach to the Serre-Rost invariant of Albert algebras that is valid in all characteristics except 3. In this special case, Serre has defined the invariant in a different way and established its existence by using Rost's original results in characteristic zero and reducing them mod 3. It is the purpose of the present note to show that the elementary approach survives in characteristic 3 as well once the necessary modifications of the cohomological set-up have been carried out.

(This paper has appeared in Indag. Math. 8 (1997), 543-548)

Holger P. Petersson <Holger.Petersson@FernUni-Hagen.de>

Michel L. Racine <me@albert.mathstat.uottawa.ca>