Tensor products and discriminants of unital quadratic forms over commutative rings

A tensor product for unital quadratic forms is introduced which extends the product of separable quadratic algebras and is naturally associative and commutative. It admits a multiplicative functor vdis, the vector discriminant, with values in symmetric bilinear forms. We also compute the usual (signed) discriminant of the tensor product in terms of the discriminants of the factors. The orthogonal group scheme of a nonsingular unital quadratic formQ of even rank is isomorphic toZ ₂×SO(Q ⁰) whereQ ⁰ is the restriction of –Q to the space of trace zero elements. We use cohomology to interpret the action of separable quadratic algebras on unital quadratic forms, and to determine which forms of odd rank can be realized asQ ⁰.     

Classification theorems for central simple algebras with involution (with an appendix by R. Parimala)

The involutions in this paper are algebra anti-automorphisms of period two. Involutions on endomorphism algebras of finite-dimensional vector spaces are adjoint to symmetric or skew-symmetric bilinear forms, or to hermitian forms. Analogues of the classical invariants of quadratic forms (discriminant, Clifford algebra, signature) have been defined for arbitrary central simple algebras with involution. In this paper it is shown that over certain fields these invariants are sufficient to classify involutions up to conjugation. For algebras of low degree a classification is obtained over an arbitrary field. Received: 29 April 1999     

Finiteness of real quadratic fields which admit positive integral diagonal septanary universal forms

In this paper, we will prove if D is large enough, there are no positive integral diagonal septanary universal quadratic forms over . Received: 13 November 1997 / Revised version: 17 November 1998     

Some new examples in the theory of quadratic forms

We construct a 6-dimensional anisotropic quadratic form and a 4-dimensional quadratic form over some fieldF such that becomes isotropic over the function field but every proper subform of is still anisotropic over . It is an example of non-standard isotropy with respect to some standard conditions of isotropy for 6-dimensional forms over function fields of quadrics, known previously. Besides of that, we produce an 8-dimensional quadratic form with trivial determinant such that the index of the Clifford invariant of is 4 but can not be represented as a sum of two 4-dimensional forms with trivial determinants. Using this, we find a 14-dimensional quadratic form with trivial discriminant and Clifford invariant, which is not similar to a difference of two 3-fold Pfister forms. The proofs are based on computations of the topological filtration on the Grothendieck group of certain projective homogeneous varieties. To do these computations, we develop several methods, covering a wide class of varieties and being, to our mind, of independent interest. Received November 11, 1997; in final form June 24, 1999 / Published online May 8, 2000     

Cohomological invariants of quaternionic skew-hermitian forms

We define a complete system of invariants e _n,Q ,n ≥ 0 for quaternionic skew-hermitian forms, which are twisted versions of the invariants e _n for quadratic forms. We also show that quaternionic skew-hermitian forms defined over a field of 2-cohomological dimension at most 3 are classified by rank, discriminant, Clifford invariant and Rost invariant. Received: 30 April 2006     

Linear Spaces on the Intersection of Two Quadratic Hypersurfaces,and Systems of <Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis>-adic Quadratic Forms

We obtain new results on linear spaces on the intersection of two quadratic forms defined over a non-dyadic p-adic field . One of our main tools is a recent result of Parimala and Suresh on isotropy of quadratic forms over functions fields over . As a corollary we also get new bounds for the number of variables necessary to always find a non-trivial p-adic zero of a system of quadratic forms.     

On the generic splitting of quadratic forms in characteristic 2

In [9] and [10] Knebusch established the basic facts of generic splitting theory of quadratic forms over a field of characteristic different from 2. This paper is related to [11] and [13] where Knebusch and Rehmann generalized partially this theory to a field of characteristic 2. More precisely, we begin with a complete characterization of quadratic forms of height 1 (we don't exclude anisotropic quadratic forms with quasi-linear part of dimension at least 1). This allows us to extend the notion of degree to characteristic 2. We prove some results on excellent forms and splitting tower of a quadratic form. Some results on quadratic forms of height 2 and degree 1 or 2 are given. Received: 6 March 2000; in final form: 5 October 2001 / Published online: 17 June 2002     

A computation of the Witt index for rational quadratic forms

Summary This paper adds the finishing touches to an algorithmic treatment of quadratic forms over the rational numbers. The Witt index of a rational quadratic form is explicitly computed. When combined with a recent adjustment in the Haase invariants, this gives a complete set of invariants for rational quadratic forms, a set which can be computed and which respects all of the standard natural operations (including the tensor product) for quadratic forms. The overall approach does not use (at least explicitly) anyp-adic methods, but it does give the Witt ring of thep-adics as well as the Witt ring of the rationals.     

Reduction theory over quadratic imaginary fields

Hurwitz developed a reduction theory for real binary quadratic forms of positive discriminant based on least-remainder continued fractions. For each quadratic imaginary field k, we develop a similar theory for complex binary quadratic forms of nonzero discriminant. This uses a Markov partition for the geodesic flow over the quotient of hyperbolic 3-space by the Bianchi group B_k. When k has a Euclidean algorithm, our theory is based on least-remainder continued fractions.     

Universal quadratic forms and indecomposables over biquadratic fields

The aim of this article is to study (additively) indecomposable algebraic integers of biquadratic number fields K and universal totally positive quadratic forms with coefficients in . There are given sufficient conditions for an indecomposable element of a quadratic subfield to remain indecomposable in the biquadratic number field K. Furthermore, estimates are proven which enable algorithmization of the method of escalation over K. These are used to prove, over two particular biquadratic number fields and , a lower bound on the number of variables of a universal quadratic forms.     

Sesquilinear forms over rings with involution

Many classical results concerning quadratic forms have been extended to Hermitian forms over algebras with involution. However, not much is known in the case of sesquilinear forms without any symmetry property. The present paper will establish a Witt cancellation result, an analogue of Springer’s theorem, as well as some local–global and finiteness results in this context.     

Minimal weakly isotropic forms

In this article weakly isotropic quadratic forms over a (formally) real field are studied. Conditions on the field are given which imply that every weakly isotropic form over that field has a weakly isotropic subform of small dimension. Fields over which every quadratic form can be decomposed into an orthogonal sum of a strongly anisotropic form and a torsion form are characterized in different ways.     

Class groups of quadratic fields of 3-rank at least 2: Effective bounds

In this paper, we give parametric families of both real and complex quadratic number fields whose class group has 3-rank at least 2. As a consequence, we obtain that for all large positive real numbers x, the number of both real and complex quadratic fields whose class group has 3-rank at least 2 and absolute value of the discriminant ?x is >cx1/3, where c is some positive constant.     

Quadratic descent of hermitian forms

Quadratic descent of hermitian and skew hermitian forms over division algebras with involution of the first kind in arbitrary characteristic is investigated and a criterion, in terms of systems of quadratic forms, is obtained. A refined result is also obtained for hermitian (resp. skew hermitian) forms over a quaternion algebra with symplectic (resp. orthogonal) involution.     

On the norm theorem for semisingular quadratic forms

The aim of this paper is to prove some results concerning the norm theorem for semisingular quadratic forms, i.e., those which are neither nonsingular nor totally singular. More precisely, we will give necessary conditions in order that an irreducible polynomial, possibly in more than one variable, is a norm ofa semisingular quadratic form, and we prove that our conditions are sufficient if the polynomial is given by a quadratic form which represents 1. As a consequence, we extend the Cassels-Pflster subform theorem to the case of semisingular quadratic forms.     

A few uncaught universal Hermitian forms

We will complete the list of universal binary Hermitian forms over imaginary quadratic fields by investigating three Hermitian forms missed by previous researchers.

     

MULTI-VALUED CROSSCORRELATION FUNCTION FOR m-SEQUENCES

Based on the theory of exponential sums and quadratic forms over finite field, the crosscorrelation function values between two maximal linear recursive sequences are determined under some conditions.     

On dispersion and Markov constants

We proved some results on the dispersion of the real quadratic irrational numbers, and use LEO 386/25 to compute some numerical results for discriminant <200 (see the attached Table A).The project was supported by a grant from NNSF of P.R. China.     

CONSTRUCTION OF INDECOMPOSABLEDEFINITE HERMITIAN FORMS

ＣＯＮＳＴＲＵＣＴＩＯＮＯＦＩＮＤＥＣＯＭＰＯＳＡＢＬＥＤＥＦＩＮＩＴＥＨＥＲＭＩＴＩＡＮＦＯＲＭＳ￥ＺＨＵＦＵＺＵ（ＤｅｐａｒｔｍｅｌｌｔｏｆＭａｔｈｅｍａｔｉｃｓ，ＥａｓｔＣｈｉｎａＮｏｒｍａｌＵｎｉｖｅｒｓｉｔｙｔＳｈａｎｇｈａｉ２０００６２，...     

A Hermitian analogue of the Bröcker-Prestel theorem

The Bröcker-Prestel local-global principle characterizes weak isotropy of quadratic forms over a formally real field in terms of weak isotropy over the Henselizations and isotropy over the real closures of that field. A Hermitian analogue of this principle is presented for algebras of index at most two. An improved result is also presented for algebras with a decomposable involution, algebras of Pythagorean index at most two, and algebras over SAP and ED fields.