Related papers: On the Pfister Number of Quadratic Forms

Artin solved Hilbert's 17th problem, proving that a real polynomial in $n$ variables that is positive semidefinite is a sum of squares of rational functions, and Pfister showed that only $2^n$ squares are needed. In this paper, we…

We generalize two well-known enumerative facts. The first, due to Clebsch, says that a general binary sextic form is expressible as the sum of a cube and a square in 40 different ways. The second, due to Zariski and later Vakil, states that…

In the case of quadratic forms over a field, it is well-known that the prime spectrum of the Witt ring and the space of orderings of the field determine one another, through associated signature maps. We show that a sililar relation holds…

Classifications and representations are two main topics in the theory of quadratic forms. In this paper, we consider these topics of ternary quadratic forms. For a given squarefree integer $N$, first we give the classification of positive…

We give an asymptotic for the number of prime solutions to $Q(x_1,\dots, x_8) = N$, subject to a mild non-degeneracy condition on the homogeneous quadratic form $Q$. The argument initially proceeds via the circle method, but this does not…

We use the fact that a projective half-spin representation of $Spin_{12}$ has an open orbit to generalize Pfister's result on quadratic forms of dimension 12 in $I^3$ to orthogonal involutions.

We study the minimal number of variables required by a totally positive definite diagonal universal quadratic form over a real quadratic field $\mathbb Q(\sqrt D)$ and obtain lower and upper bounds for it in terms of certain sums of…

In this paper we show that a split central simple algebra with quadratic pair which decomposes into a tensor product of quaternion algebras with involution and a quaternion algebra with quadratic pair is adjoint to a quadratic Pfister form.…

We will show that the roots of a polynomial equation in one variable of degree n are related to the solutions of a symmetric quadratic form in n-1 variables with constant positive integer coefficients. The classic polynomial notation will…

We investigate the non-diagonal normal forms of a quadratic form on R^n, in particular for n=3. For this case it is shown that the set of normal forms is the closure of a 5-dimensional submanifold in the 6-dimensional Grassmannian of…

The roots of -1 in the set of biquaternions (quaternions with complex components, or complex numbers with quaternion real and imaginary parts) are studied and it is shown that there is an infinite number of non-trivial complexified…

We study a generalization of the classical correspondence between homogeneous quadratic polynomials, quadratic forms, and symmetric/alternating bilinear forms to forms in $n$ variables. The main tool is combinatorial polarization, and the…

Pfister's Local-Global Principle states that a quadratic form over a (formally) real field is weakly hyperbolic (i.e. represents a torsion element in the Witt ring) if and only if its total signature is zero. This result extends naturally…

The problem of the classification of the indefinite binary quadratic forms with integer coefficients is solved introducing a special partition of the de Sitter world, where the coefficients of the forms lie, into separate domains. Every…

Let s(n) be the number of representations of n as the sum of three squares. We prove a remarkable new identity for s(p^2n)- ps(n) with p being an odd prime. This identity makes nontrivial use of ternary quadratic forms with discriminants…

A bivariate quartic form is a homogeneous bivariate polynomial of degree four. A criterion of positivity for such a form is known. In the present paper this criterion is reformulated in terms of pseudotensorial invariants of the form.

There are many specific results, spread over the literature, regarding the dualisation of quadrics in projective spaces and quadratic forms on vector spaces. In the present work we aim at generalising and unifying some of these. We start…

Let n be a positive integer. We consider the Sylvester Resultant of f and g, where f is a generic polynomial of degree 2 or 3 and g is a generic polynomial of degree n. If f is a quadratic polynomial, we find the resultant's height. If f is…

For a positive integer $m$, a (positive definite integral) quadratic form is called primitively $m$-universal if it primitively represents all quadratic forms of rank $m$. It was proved in arXiv:2202.13573 that there are exactly $107$…

We determine the squarefree part of the scalar factor that arises when the quartic invariant of the generic binary form $F$ of odd degree $2n+1$ is expressed as the discriminant of the unique quadratic covariant $(F,F)_{2n}$. This…