Abstract:
Tits construction produces a Lie algebra out of a composition algebra and an exceptional Jordan algebra. The type of the result is F4, 2E6, E7 or E8 when the composition algebra has dimension 1,2,4 or 8 respectively. Garibaldi and Petersson noted that the Tits index 2E356 cannot occur as a result of Tits construction. Recently Alex Henke proved that the Tits index E667 is also not possible. We push the analogy further and show that Lie algebras of Tits index E1338 don't lie in the image of the Tits construction. The proof relies on basic facts about symmetric spaces and our joint result with Garibaldi and Semenov about isotropy of groups of type E7 in terms of the Rost invariant. This is a part of a work joint with Simon Rigby.