Cyclic compositions and trisotopies

Cyclic compositions in the sense of Springer [T.A. Springer, Oktaven, Jordan-Algebren und Ausnahmegruppen, Universität Göttingen, 1963] and Knus, Merkurjev, Rost and Tignol [M.-A. Knus, A. Merkurjev, M. Rost, J.-P. Tignol, The Book of Involutions, Amer. Math. Soc. Colloq. Publ., vol. 44, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 1998. With a preface in French by J. Tits] are investigated by means of cyclic trisotopies, a concept originally due to Albert [A.A. Albert, A construction of exceptional Jordan division algebras, Ann. of Math. (2) 67 (1958) 1–28]. Using the quadrupling of composition algebras, we enumerate cyclic trisotopies and compositions in a rational manner, i.e., without extending the base field. We relate cyclic trisotopies explicitly to simple associative algebras of degree 3 with involution and to the Tits process of cubic Jordan algebras.