Fields of definition of building blocks with quaternionic multiplication

Abstract

This paper investigates the fields of definition up to isogeny of the abelian varieties called building blocks. In [Ri1] and $[\mathrm{Py}]$ a characterization of the fields of definition of these varieties together with their endomorphisms is given in terms of a Galois cohomology class canonically attached to them. However, when the building blocks have quaternionic multiplication, then the field of definition of the varieties can be strictly smaller than the field of definition of their endomorphisms. What we do is to give a characterization of the field of definition of the varieties in this case (also in terms of their associated Galois cohomology class), and we also make the computations that are needed in order to calculate in practice these fields from our characterization.