A+ CATEGORY SCIENTIFIC UNIT

Dualization in algebraic $K$-theory and the invariant $e^1$ of quadratic forms over schemes

Volume 215 / 2011

Marek Szyjewski Fundamenta Mathematicae 215 (2011), 233-299 MSC: Primary 11E081. DOI: 10.4064/fm215-3-3

Abstract

In the classical Witt theory over a field $F$, the study of quadratic forms begins with two simple invariants: the dimension of a form modulo $2$, called the dimension index and denoted $e^0 : W(F)\rightarrow\mathbb{Z}/2$, and the discriminant $e^1$ with values in $k_1 (F)= F^{\ast }/F^{\ast 2}$, which behaves well on the fundamental ideal $I(F)={\rm ker}(e^0)$.

Here a more sophisticated situation is considered, of quadratic forms over a scheme and, more generally, over an exact category with duality. Our purposes are:

$\bullet$ to establish a theory of the invariant $e^1$ in this generality;

$\bullet$ to provide computations involving this invariant and show its usefulness.

We define a relative version of $e^1$ for pairs of quadratic forms with the same value of~$e^0$. This is first done in terms of loops in some bisimplicial set whose fundamental group is the $K_1$ of the underlying exact category, and next translated into the language of $4$-term double exact sequences, which allows us to carry out actual computations. An unexpected difficulty is that the value of the relative $e^1$ need not vanish even if both forms are metabolic. To make the invariant well defined on the Witt classes, we study the subgroup $H$ generated by the values of $e^1$ on the pairs of metabolic forms and define the codomain for $e^1$ by factoring out this subgroup from some obvious subquotient of $K_1$. This proves to be a correct definition of the small $k_1$ for categories; it agrees with Milnor's usual $k_1$ in the case of fields.

Next we provide applications of this new invariant by computing it for some pairs of forms over the projective line and for some forms over conics.

Authors

  • Marek SzyjewskiMieszka I 15/97
    40-877 Katowice, Poland
    e-mail

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