On the Pfister Number of Quadratic Forms
Rings and Algebras
2008-08-29 v1
Abstract
The generic quadratic form of even dimension n with trivial discriminant over an arbitrary field of characteristic different from 2 containing a square root of -1 can be written in the Witt ring as a sum of 2-fold Pfister forms using n-2 terms and not less. The number of 2-fold Pfister forms needed to express a quadratic form of dimension 6 with trivial discriminant is determined in various cases.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0808.3840,
title = {On the Pfister Number of Quadratic Forms},
author = {R. Parimala and V. Suresh and J. -P. Tignol},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0808.3840},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
13 pages