On Tame Kernel and Class Group in Terms of Quadratic Forms

The paper is to investigate the structure of the tame kernel K₂O_F for certain quadratic number fields F, which extends the scope of Conner and Hurrelbrink (J. Number Theory88 (2001), 263-282). We determine the 4-rank and the 8-rank of the tame kernel, the Tate kernel, and the 2-part of the class group. Our characterizations are in terms of binary quadratic forms X²+32Y,X²+64Y²,X²+2Py²,2X²+Py²,X²−2Py²,2X²−Py². The results are very useful for numerical computations.