# zbMATH — the first resource for mathematics

##### Examples
 Geometry Search for the term Geometry in any field. Queries are case-independent. Funct* Wildcard queries are specified by * (e.g. functions, functorial, etc.). Otherwise the search is exact. "Topological group" Phrases (multi-words) should be set in "straight quotation marks". au: Bourbaki & ti: Algebra Search for author and title. The and-operator & is default and can be omitted. Chebyshev | Tschebyscheff The or-operator | allows to search for Chebyshev or Tschebyscheff. "Quasi* map*" py: 1989 The resulting documents have publication year 1989. so: Eur* J* Mat* Soc* cc: 14 Search for publications in a particular source with a Mathematics Subject Classification code (cc) in 14. "Partial diff* eq*" ! elliptic The not-operator ! eliminates all results containing the word elliptic. dt: b & au: Hilbert The document type is set to books; alternatively: j for journal articles, a for book articles. py: 2000-2015 cc: (94A | 11T) Number ranges are accepted. Terms can be grouped within (parentheses). la: chinese Find documents in a given language. ISO 639-1 language codes can also be used.

##### Operators
 a & b logic and a | b logic or !ab logic not abc* right wildcard "ab c" phrase (ab c) parentheses
##### Fields
 any anywhere an internal document identifier au author, editor ai internal author identifier ti title la language so source ab review, abstract py publication year rv reviewer cc MSC code ut uncontrolled term dt document type (j: journal article; b: book; a: book article)
An introduction to Hopf algebras. (English) Zbl 1234.16022
Berlin: Springer (ISBN 978-0-387-72765-3/hbk; 978-0-387-72766-0/ebook). xiv, 273 p. EUR 59.95/net; £ 53.99; SFR 86.00 (2011).

There are several ways that one can describe Hopf algebras. Historically, Hopf algebras arose in the 1940s by Hopf et al. as a tool used to study the cohomology of compact Lie groups and their homogeneous spaces. Hopf algebras can also be viewed as a generalization of group rings, leading to a generalization of Galois extensions to Hopf-Galois extensions.

In this book, Underwood chooses to introduce Hopf algebras in a manner most natural to a reader whose knowledge of algebra does not extend much beyond a first year graduate course. The notion of group naturally generalizes to a group scheme, and in this work Hopf algebras arise as the algebras which represent these functors. This approach makes the notion of comultiplication and antipode very natural: they represent the binary operation and inverse in the group scheme. In this way Hopf algebra axioms such as coassociativity are intuitive. This approach restricts the Hopf algebras to commutative Hopf algebras, and hence would not be the best definition for the reader interested in, say, quantum groups, but for applications to problems in Galois module theory the reader receives an excellent introduction to the topic.

One downside for a person searching for a quick definition of “Hopf algebra” is that the term is not defined until Chapter 4. Nonetheless, the first page of Chapter 4 gives a definition of a commutative Hopf algebra which is independent of the theory developed in the first three chapters. The reader might lack the intuition that would be gained from reading the first three chapters, which are devoted to the development of the Zariski topology, sheaves, and schemes, providing the minimum amount of algebraic geometry necessary to relate Hopf algebras to group valued functors.

The particular focus of this book is on the study of Hopf orders. For $R$ an integral domain with field of fractions $K$, a finitely generated $R$-algebra $A$ is an $R$-Hopf order in the $K$-Hopf algebra $H$ is an $R$-submodule of $A$ which is closed under multiplication and the comultiplication (from $H$) and $KA=H$. The case where $H$ is a group ring is studied extensively, in particular where $H=K{C}_{{p}^{n}}$, where ${C}_{{p}^{n}}$ is the cyclic group of order ${p}^{n}$. Hopf orders in $K{C}_{p}$ are completely classified, and additional chapters are devoted to $K{C}_{{p}^{2}}$ and $K{C}_{{p}^{3}}$ under the assumption that $K$ contains a ${p}^{2}$ and ${p}^{3}$ root of unity, respectively.

Later chapters give applications of Hopf algebras. Given a Galois extension of local fields $L/K$ with rings of integers $S$ and $R$, respectively, and Galois group $G$, one is often interested in a description of $S$ as an $RG$-module. While $S$ is not isomorphic to $RG$ as $RG$-modules unless $L/K$ is tame, there may be an $R$-Hopf order $H$ in $RG$ such that $S\cong H$ as $H$-modules when $L/K$ is wild. A global result ($K$ a finite extension of $ℚ$) is the computation of the class group $𝒞\left(H\right)$ of the Hopf order $H$, defined as a quotient of homomorphisms from the virtual characters of $G$ to the idèle group of $K$. An important subgroup of $𝒞\left(H\right)$, the Hopf-Swan subgroup, is computed. This is a generalization of the Swan subgroup which arises when $H=RG$. Numerous computations of the Hopf-Swan subgroup are provided.

An interesting aspect of this book is the final chapter “Open Questions and Research Problems”. Many of these questions relate to the classification of Hopf orders in cyclic group rings. Some, such as counting the order bounded group valuations on a $p$-group of order ${p}^{n}$, would be accessible to a student with very little algebra background. Others, such as a general, simple classification of Hopf orders in $K{C}_{{p}^{n}}$, $n\ge 3$, seem quite involved.

##### MSC:
 16T05 Hopf algebras and their applications 14L15 Group schemes 16-01 Textbooks (associative rings and algebras) 11R33 Integral representations related to algebraic numbers 13C20 Class groups 16H10 Orders in separable associative algebras 16S34 Group rings (associative rings), Laurent polynomial rings