Weakly isotropic quadratic forms under field extensions (Q641871)

\(\widehat{u}\)-invariant of a formally real field \(F\) is defined to be the maximal dimension of anisotropic weakly isotropic quadratic form over \(F\). Quadratic form \(\varphi\) is said to be weakly isotropic if an orthogonal multiple \(m\varphi = \varphi \perp \cdots \perp \varphi\) is isotropic. The author studies behavior of the finiteness of \(\widehat{u}\)-invariant under field extensions. First, using a construction due to A. Prestel it is shown that there are fields with infinite \(\widehat{u}\)-invariant and a quadratic extension having any prescribed two-power \(\widehat{u}\)-invariant. Second, there are quadratic extensions with the \(\widehat{u}\)-invariant of the ground field equal to zero and infinite \(\widehat{u}\)-invariant of the extension field. Third, going down and going up of the finiteness of \(\widehat{u}\)-invariant is studied in finite extensions under some additional technical conditions. In particular, a going down result is proved for finite extensions \(K/F\) with a finite number of orderings of \(F\) provided all these extend to \(K\).