Stronger arithmetic equivalence

Abstract

This paper considers two alternative strengthenings of the notion of arithmetic equivalence, which the author calls local integral equivalence and solvable equivalence. (The latter turns out to be strictly stronger than the former.) They have the advantage of being easier to check than Prasad’s notion, which the author calls integral equivalence. Furthermore, solvable equivalence, which the author shows does not imply integral equivalence, is nevertheless a sufficient condition to imply that the invariants considered by Prasad are equal. This opens the door to easier proofs of Prasad’s result, and lessens the reliance on Scott’s construction: the author finds a generalization of this construction that yields infinitely many examples of solvable equivalence. The paper also contains several examples to clarify the relationships between the various different notions of equivalence. Some of these examples (which are mainly found with the help of a computer) answer open questions from the group theory literature.