karpenko@math.jussieu.fr, merkurev@math.ucla.edu

Submission: 2007, Nov 19

We prove that the essential dimension and p-dimension of a p-group G over a field F containing a primitive p-th root of unity is equal to the least dimension of a faithful representation of G over F. This is a revised version of the preprint no. 263 (with a different title) where the essential p-dimension was not considered.

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 20G15; 14C35

Keywords and Phrases: Algebraic groups, finite p-groups, essential dimension, representations, K-theory

Full text: dvi.gz 40 k, dvi 95 k, ps.gz 820 k, pdf.gz 203 k, pdf 242 k.