ag.algebraic geometry - What is "restriction of scalars" for a torus?

As said, the sought after concept is also known as Weil restriction. In a word, it is the algebraic analogue of the process of viewing an $n$-dimensional complex variety as a $(2n)$-dimensional real variety.

The setup is as follows: let $L/K$ be a finite degree field extension and let $X$ be a scheme over $L$. Then the Weil restriction $W_{L/K} X$ is the $K$-scheme representing the following functor on the category of K-algebras:

$Amapsto X(A otimes_K L)$.

In particular, one has $W_{L/K} X(K) = X(L)$.

By abstract nonsense (Yoneda...), if such a scheme exists it is uniquely determined by the above functor. For existence, some hypotheses are necessary, but I believe that it exists whenever $X$ is reduced of finite type.

Now for a more concrete description. Suppose $X = mathrm{Spec} L[y_1,...,y_n]/J$ is an affine scheme. Let $d = [L:K]$ and $a_1,...,a_d$ be a $K$-basis of $L$. Then we make the following "substitution":

$$y_i = a_1 x_{i1} + ... + a_d x_{id},$$

thus replacing each $y_i$ by a linear expression in d new variables $x_{ij}$. Moreover,
suppose $J = langle g_1,...,g_m rangle$; then we substitute each of the above equations into $g_k(y_1,...,y_n)$ getting a polynomial in the $x$-variables, however still with $L$-coefficients. But now using our fixed basis of $L/K$, we can regard a single polynomial with $L$-coefficients as a vector of $d$ polynomials with $K$ coefficients. Thus we end up with $md$ generating polynomials in the $x$-variables, say generating an ideal $I$ in $K[x_{ij}]$, and we put $mathrm Res_{L/K} X = mathrm{Spec} K[x_{ij}]/I$.

A great example to look at is the case $X = G_m$ (multiplicative group) over $L = mathbb{C}$ (complex numbers) and $K = mathbb{R}$. Then $X$ is the spectrum of

$$mathbb{C}[y_1,y_2]/(y_1 y_2 - 1);$$

put $y_i = x_{i1} + sqrt{-1} x_{i2}$ and do the algebra. You can really see that the
corresponding real affine variety is $mathbb{R}left[x,yright]left[(x^2+y^2)^{-1}right]$, as it should be: see e.g.
p. 2 of

http://www.math.uga.edu/~pete/SC5-AlgebraicGroups.pdf

for the calculations.

Note the important general property that for a variety $X/L$, the dimension of the Weil restriction from $L$ down to $K$ is $[L:K]$ times the dimension of $X/L$. This is good to keep in mind so as not to confuse it with another possible interpretation of "restriction of scalars", namely composition of the map $X to mathrm{Spec} L$ with the map $mathrm{Spec} L to Spec K$ to
give a map $X to mathrm{Spec} K$. This is a much weirder functor, which preserves the dimension but screws up things like geometric integrality. (When I first heard about "restriction of
scalars", I guessed it was this latter thing and got very confused.)