Kernels of polarizations of abelian varieties over finite fields

Suppose $C$ is an isogeny class of abelian varieties over a finite field $k$. In this paper we give a partial answer to the question of which finite group schemes over $k$ occur as kernels of polarizations of varieties in $C$. We show that there is an element $I_C$ of a finite two-torsion group that determines which Jordan-H\"older isomorphism classes of finite commutative group schemes over $k$ contain kernels of polarizations. We indicate how the two-torsion group can be computed from the characteristic polynomial of the Frobenius endomorphism of the varieties in $C$, and we give some relatively weak sufficient conditions for the element $I_C$ to be zero. Using these conditions, we show that every isogeny class of simple odd-dimensional abelian varieties over a finite field contains a principally polarized variety. As a step in the proofs of these theorems, we prove that if $K$ is a CM-field and $A$ is a central simple $K$-algebra with an involution of the second kind, then every totally positive real element of $K$ is the reduced norm of a positive symmetric element of $A$.