Hyperbolic tessellations and generators of for imaginary quadratic fields

Abstract

Abstract We develop methods for constructing explicit generators, modulo torsion, of the $K_3$ -groups of imaginary quadratic number fields. These methods are based on either tessellations of hyperbolic $3$ -space or on direct calculations in suitable pre-Bloch groups and lead to the very first proven examples of explicit generators, modulo torsion, of any infinite $K_3$ -group of a number field. As part of this approach, we make several improvements to the theory of Bloch groups for $ K_3 $ of any field, predict the precise power of $2$ that should occur in the Lichtenbaum conjecture at $ -1 $ and prove that this prediction is valid for all abelian number fields.