Primitive ideals and automorphisms of quantum matrices.

Let K be a field and q be a nonzero element of K that is not a root of unity. We give a criterion for (0) to be a primitive ideal of the algebra O-q(M-m,M-n) of quantum matrices. Next, we describe all height one primes of these two problems are actually interlinked since it turns out that (0) is a primitive ideal of O-q(M-m,M-n) whenever O-q(M-m,M-n) has only finitely many height one primes. Finally, we compute the automorphism group of O-q(M-m,M-n) in the case where m not equal n. In order to do this, we first study the action of this group on the prime spectrum of O-q(M-m,M-n). Then, by using the preferred basis of O-q(M-m,M-n) and PBW bases, we prove that the automorphism group of O-q(M-m,M-n) is isomorphic to the torus (K*)(m+n=1) when m not equal n and (m, n) not equal (1, 3) (3, 1).