The automorphisms of Petit's algebras

Abstract

Let $\sigma$ be an automorphism of a field $K$ with fixed field $F$. We study the automorphisms of nonassociative unital algebras which are canonical generalizations of the associative quotient algebras $K[t;\sigma]/fK[t;\sigma]$ obtained when the twisted polynomial $f\in K[t;\sigma]$ is invariant, and were first defined by Petit. We compute all their automorphisms if $\sigma$ commutes with all automorphisms in ${\rm Aut}_F(K)$ and $n\geq m-1$, where $n$ is the order of $\sigma$ and $m$ the degree of $f$,and obtain partial results for $n<m-1$. In the case where $K/F$ is a finite Galois field extension, we obtain more detailed information on the structure of the automorphism groups of these nonassociative unital algebras over $F$. We also briefly investigate when two such algebras are isomorphic.