Isometries of lattices and automorphisms of K3 surfaces

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to give necessary and sufficient conditions for an integral polynomial to be the characteristic polynomial of a semi-simple isometry of some even unimodular lattice of given signature. This result has applications applications to automorphisms of K3 surfaces; in particular, we show that every Salem number of degree 4, 6, 8,1 2, 14 or 16 is the dynamical degree of an automorphism of a non-projective K3 surface.