Symplectic Involutions, quadratic pairs and function fields of conics

In this paper we study symplectic involutions and quadratic pairs that become hyperbolic over the function field of a conic. In particular, we classify them in degree 4 and deduce results on 5 dimensional minimal quadratic forms, thus extending to arbitrary fields some results of [24], which were only known in characteristic different from 2.Comment: 17 page

Pfister's Theorem for orthogonal involutions of degree 12

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

The Arason invariant of orthogonal involutions of degree 12 and 8, and quaternionic subgroups of the Brauer group

Using the Rost invariant for torsors under Spin groups one may define an analogue of the Arason invariant for certain hermitian forms and orthogonal involutions. We calculate this invariant explicitly in various cases, and use it to associate to every orthogonal involution with trivial discriminant and trivial Clifford invariant over a central simple algebra of even co-index a cohomology class $f_3$ of degree 3 with $\mu_2$ coefficients. This invariant $f_3$ is the double of any representative of the Arason invariant; it vanishes when the algebra has degree at most 10, and also when there is a quadratic extension of the center that simultaneously splits the algebra and makes the involution hyperbolic. The paper provides a detailed study of both invariants, with particular attention to the degree 12 case, and to the relation with the existence of a quadratic splitting field.Comment: A mistake pointed out by A. Sivatski in Section 5.3 has been corrected in the new version of this preprin

Orthogonal involutions on central simple algebras and function fields of Severi-Brauer varieties

An orthogonal involution $\sigma$ on a central simple algebra $A$, after scalar extension to the function field $\mathcal{F}(A)$ of the Severi--Brauer variety of $A$, is adjoint to a quadratic form $q_\sigma$ over $\mathcal{F}(A)$, which is uniquely defined up to a scalar factor. Some properties of the involution, such as hyperbolicity, and isotropy up to an odd-degree extension of the base field, are encoded in this quadratic form, meaning that they hold for the involution $\sigma$ if and only if they hold for $q_\sigma$. As opposed to this, we prove that there exists non-totally decomposable orthogonal involutions that become totally decomposable over $\mathcal{F}(A)$, so that the associated form $q_\sigma$ is a Pfister form. We also provide examples of nonisomorphic involutions on an index $2$ algebra that yield similar quadratic forms, thus proving that the form $q_\sigma$ does not determine the isomorphism class of $\sigma$, even when the underlying algebra has index $2$. As a consequence, we show that the $e_3$ invariant for orthogonal involutions is not classifying in degree $12$, and does not detect totally decomposable involutions in degree $16$, as opposed to what happens for quadratic forms

The J-invariant, Tits algebras and Triality

In the present paper we set up a connection between the indices of the Tits algebras of a simple linear algebraic group $G$ and the degree one parameters of its motivic $J$-invariant. Our main technical tool are the second Chern class map and Grothendieck's $\gamma$-filtration. As an application we recover some known results on the $J$-invariant of quadratic forms of small dimension; we describe all possible values of the $J$-invariant of an algebra with orthogonal involution up to degree 8 and give explicit examples; we establish several relations between the $J$-invariant of an algebra $A$ with orthogonal involution and the $J$-invariant of the corresponding quadratic form over the function field of the Severi-Brauer variety of $A$.Comment: 28p

Exemples de groupes semi-simples simplement connexes anisotropes contenant un sous-groupe unipotent

6 pages.Nous construisons des exemples des groupes semi-simples anisotropes de type G2 (resp. F4, E8) contenant un sous-groupe unipotent lisse non trivial définis sur un corps convenable d'exposant caractéristique 2 (resp. 3, 5). We show that there are anisotropic groups of type G2 (resp. F4, E8) containing a non-trivial smooth unipotent subgroup over a suitable field of characteristic 2 (resp. 3, 5)

Algebras with involution that become hyperbolic over the fonction field of a conic

We study central simple algebras with involution of the first kind that become hyperbolic over the function field of the conic associated to a given quaternion algebra $Q$. We classify these algebras in degree~$4$ and give an example of such a division algebra with orthogonal involution of degree~$8$ that does not contain $Q$ with its canonical involution, even though it contains $Q$ and is totally decomposable into a tensor product of quaternion algebras with involution

Minimal quadratic forms for the function field of a conic in characteristic 22

In this note, we construct explicit examples of $F_Q$-minimal quadratic forms of dimension $5$ and $7$, where $F_Q$ is the function field of a conic over a field $F$ of characteristic $2$. The construction uses the fact that any set of $n$ cyclic $p$ algebras over a field of characteristic $p$ can be described using only $n+1$ elements of the base field. It also uses a general result that provides an upper bound on the Witt index of an orthogonal sum of two regular anisotropic quadratic forms over a henselian valued field