Ideal class groups of Witt rings (Q5916447)

Let F denote a formally real field and \(R=WF\) the Witt ring of classes of nondegenerate quadratic forms over F. As usual, IF denotes the ideal of even dimensional classes in R and \(X_ F\) the space of orders of F. The author continues his study of the ring properties of R, begun in [J. Algebra 96, 368-385 (1985; Zbl 0574.10028)]. For this he relies on the properties of Prüfer rings due to \textit{M. Griffin} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 239, 55-67 (1969; Zbl 0185.098) and Can. J. Math. 26, 412-429 (1974; Zbl 0259.13008)]. Also recall that an element x of a commutative ring is said to be regular if it is not a zero-divisor and any ideal containing a regular element is called a regular ideal. An element of R is said to be strongly regular if it contains a strongly regular element. Finally C(R) is the ideal class group of WF. The author shows, i.a. that ``R is non-reduced and \(| X_ F| <\infty\) or \(R={\mathbb{Z}}''\) is equivalent to the invertibility of all regular ideals which is, in turn, equivalent to every regular ideal being a product of prime ideals. Furthermore, if \(| X_ F| <\infty\) and I is a strongly regular ideal of WF then I is a unique product of prime ideals and also has a unique primary decomposition. It also is true that, if \(| X_ F| <\infty\), every strongly regular ideal is invertible. As usual, a field F is called i-stable if \(I^{i+1}F=2I^ iF\). Then it is shown that F, a 2-stable field with \(| X_ F| <\infty\), has \(C(R)=\{1\}\). The group C(R) is completely described for i-stable fields. In the final section the author computes C(R) when F is the iterated power series field \({\mathbb{R}}((t_ 1))((t_ 2))...((t_ n))\). This, as well as the computation of C(R) in the i-stable case, is quite explicit.