Albert algebras, a specific kind of Jordan algebra, are naturally distinguished objects among commutative nonassociative algebras and also arise naturally in the context of simple affine group schemes of type $\mathsf {F}_4$, $\mathsf {E}_6$, or $\mathsf {E}_7$. We study these objects over an arbitrary base ring R, with particular attention to the case $R = \mathbb {Z}$. We prove in this generality results previously in the literature in the special case where R is a field of characteristic different from 2 and 3.

Let Tn+1(R) be the algebra of all upper triangular n+1 by n+1 matrices over a 2-torsionfree commutative ring R with identity. In this paper, we give a complete description of the Jordan automorphisms of Tn+1(R), proving that every Jordan automorphism of Tn+1(R) can be written in a unique way as a product of a graph automorphism, an inner automorphism and a diagonal automorphism for n ≥ 1.

We construct the Weil representation of the Kantor-Koecher-Tits Lie algebra g associated to a simple real Jordan algebra V. Later we introduce a family of integral operators intertwining the Weil representation with the infinitesimal representations of the degenerate principal series of the conformal group G of the Jordan algebra V. The decomposition of L2(V) in the case of Jordan algebra of real square matrices is given using this construction.