Related papers: The Pythagoras number of a rational function field…

We show that any sum of squares in a field of transcendence degree $1$ over $\mathbb{Q}$ is a sum of $5$ squares, answering a question of Pop and Pfister. We deduce this result from a representation theorem, in $k(C)$, for quadratic forms…

Let $n\in\mathbb{N}$ and let $K$ be a field with a henselian discrete valuation of rank $n$ with hereditarily euclidean residue field. Let $F/K$ be an algebraic function field in one variable. We show that the Pythagoras number of $F$ is…

We study the sums of squares on cylinders of the form $X \times \mathbb{A}_K$ for a (weakly) factorial curve $C$. We prove the equality of the Pythagoras numbers of the ring of regular functions on the cylinder with that of the field of…

We give upper bounds for the level and the Pythagoras number of function fields over fraction fields of integral Henselian excellent local rings. In particular, we show that the Pythagoras number of $\mathbb{R}((x_1,\dots,x_n))$ is $\leq…

We show that every sum of squares in the three-variable Laurent series field $\mathbb{R}((x,y,z))$ is a sum of 4 squares, as was conjectured in a paper of Choi, Dai, Lam and Reznick in the 1980's. We obtain this result by proving that every…

Let $K$ be a complex bi-quadratic field with ring of integers $\mathcal{O}_{K}$. For $K = \mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{-m}$, $\sqrt{n}$), where $ m \equiv 3 \pmod 4 $ and $ n \equiv 1 \pmod 4$, we prove that every algebraic integer can be written as…

We show that the Pythagoras number of rings of type $\mathbb{R}[x,y, \sqrt{f(x,y)}]$ is infinite, provided that the polynomial $f(x,y)$ satisfies some mild conditions.

Let $K$ be a quartic number field containing $\sqrt{2}$ and let $\mathcal{O}\subseteq K$ be an order such that $\sqrt{2}\in \mathcal{O}$. We prove that the Pythagoras number of $\mathcal{O}$ is at most 5. This confirms a conjecture of…

We prove that the Pythagoras number of the ring of integers of the compositum of all real quadratic fields is infinite. The same holds for certain infinite totally real cyclotomic fields. In contrast, we construct infinite degree totally…

This paper presents algorithms for computing the length of a sum of squares and a Pythagoras element in a global field $K$ of characteristic different from $2$. In the first part of the paper, we present algorithms for computing the length…

We bound the Pythagoras number of a real projective subvariety: the smallest positive integer $r$ such that every sum of squares of linear forms in its homogeneous coordinate ring is a sum of at most $r$ squares. Enhancing existing methods,…

We classify all totally real number fields of degree at most 5 that admit a universal quadratic form with rational integer coefficients; in fact, there are none over the previously unsolved cases of quartic and quintic fields. This fully…

We examine the Pythagoras number $\mathcal{P}(\mathcal{O}_K)$ of the ring of integers $\mathcal{O}_K$ in a totally real biquadratic number field $K$. We show that the known upper bound $7$ is attained in a large and natural infinite family…

We give an example of a polynomial of degree 4 in 5 variables that is the sum of squares of 8 polynomials and cannot be decomposed as the sum of 7 squares. This improves the current existing lower bound of 7 polynomials for the Pythagoras…

In this paper we study the Pythagoras number $\mathcal{P}(\mathcal{O}_K)$ for the rings of integers in totally real biquadratic fields $K$. We continue the work of Tinkov\'a towards proving the conjecture by Kr\'asensk\'y, Ra\v{s}ka and…

Siegel proved that every totally positive element of a number field K is the sum of four squares, so in particular the Pythagoras number is uniformly bounded across number fields. The p-adic Kochen operator provides a p-adic analogue of…

We show that the higher Pythagoras numbers for the polynomial ring are infinite $p_{2s}(K[x_1,x_2,\dots,x_n])=\infty$ provided that $K$ is a formally real field, $n\geq2$ and $s\geq 1$. This almost fully solves an old question \cite[Problem…

Let $K$ be a totally real number field with Galois closure $L$. We prove that if $f \in \mathbb Q[x_1,...,x_n]$ is a sum of $m$ squares in $K[x_1,...,x_n]$, then $f$ is a sum of \[4m \cdot 2^{[L: \mathbb Q]+1} {[L: \mathbb Q] +1 \choose…

We prove that the ring of integers in the totally real cubic subfield $K^{(49)}$ of the cyclotomic field $\mathbb{Q}(\zeta_7)$ has Pythagoras number equal to $4$. This is the smallest possible value for a totally real number field of odd…

We consider Shanks' simplest cubic fields $K$ for which the index $[\mathcal{O}_K:\mathbb{Z}[\rho]]$ of a root $\rho$ of the defining parametric polynomial is $3$. For them, we study the additive indecomposables of $K$ and provide a…