We describe all group gradings of the matrix algebra M 2 (k), where k is an arbitrary field. We prove that any such grading reduces to a grading of type C 2 , a grading of type C 2 xC 2 , or to a good grading. We give new simple proofs for the description of C 2 -gradings and C 2 x C2-gradings on M 2 (k).
INTRODUCTION AND PRELIMINARY RESULTSLet k be a field, G a group and A a /c-algebra. We say that A is G-graded if A = 0 A g , a direct sum of fc-vector subspaces, such that A g A h C A gh for any g,heG.
geGThe following general problem was posed by E. Zelmanov (see [8]): find all G-gradings of the matrix algebra M n (k), where G is a group, k a field, and n a positive integer. The answer depends on the structure of G and A;, so it is hard to expect the problem can be solved in the general. However, several results have been obtained in special cases. In [7], gradings on A = M n (k) for which every matrix unit e^ (the matrix having 1 on the (i, j)-position, and zero elsewhere) is a homogeneous element (that is, it belongs to one of the subspaces A g ) have been studied. These gradings have been further investigated in [6], where they were called good gradings. Good gradings are fundamental in the study of all gradings, since as we shall see below, in certain cases any grading is isomorphic to a good grading. The description of all gradings of M 2 (k) by the cyclic group C 2 with two elements was done in [6], by using computational methods and the duality between group actions and group gradings. This was explained in [4] in terms of actions and coactions of Hopf algebras, the basic underlying idea being that a G-grading on an algebra A is precisely a structure of a ftG-comodule algebra on A. This idea was very useful for studying gradings of matrix algebras by cyclic groups, see [4]. In particular all the isomorphism types of C 2 -gradings on M 2 {k) were obtained in [4] in the case where char(fc) ^ 2. For char(fe) = 2, the classification has been completed in [2]. We note that in the case where k is algebraically closed, any C m -grading on M n (k) is isomorphic to a good grading (see [5,10]). This fact led to a different approach to the classification of all gradings of M n (k) over cyclic groups for an arbitrary field k, by using descent theory;