Pencils of quadratic forms and hyperelliptic function fields (Q1569810)

Let \(P(k)\) denote the set of equivalence classes of nonsingular pencils of quadratic forms of even order defined over a field \(k\), \(\operatorname {char}k\neq 2\). Let \(F(k)\) denote the set of \(k\)-isomorphism classes of hyperelliptic function fields over \(k\). Generalizing a paper of A. Weil, the authors define a map \(\Phi: P(k)\to F(k)\) as follows: Let \(\{F,G\}\) be a pair of quadratic forms representing the pencil \(P= P(F,G)\in P(k)\). Then \(\Phi(P)= k(u,y)\) where \(y^2= \det(uF+G)\). The main results are: 1) \(\Phi\) surjective \(\Leftrightarrow k\) is perfect and the norm map \[ \overline{N}_{L/k}: L^\times /L^{\times^2}\to k^\times /k^{\times^2} \] is surjective for every finite extension \(L\) of \(k\). 2) \(\Phi\) injective \(\Leftrightarrow\) every finite extension \(L\) of \(k\) is quadratically closed.