Witt groups of affine three-folds (Q1121335)

Let R be a regular affine domain of dimension three over the field of real or complex numbers. Let W(R) be the Witt group of R and let \(CH^ 2(R)\) be the group of codimension two algebraic cycles of \(X=Spec(R)\) modulo rational equivalence. The author proves that finite generation of W(R) is equivalent to finiteness of \(CH^ 2(R)\otimes {\mathbb{Z}}/2{\mathbb{Z}}\) (theorem 3.1). Let \(\Gamma(X,{\mathcal H}^ n)\) denote the group of Zariski sections of the sheaf, associated to the presheaf \({\mathcal U}\to H^ n_{et}({\mathcal U},\mu_ 2).\) Let \(\{I_ nX\}_{n\geq 0}\) denote the filtration on W(X) which is a pull-back of the filtration on W(K) (K is the function field of X). To prove theorem 3.1 the author constructs homomorphisms of \(I_ nX\) into \(\Gamma(X,{\mathcal H}^ n)\) proposition 3.2) and then studies the finiteness of the groups \(\Gamma(X,{\mathcal H}^ n)\). He proves that \(CH^ 2(R)\otimes {\mathbb{Z}}/2{\mathbb{Z}}\) is finite if and only if \(\Gamma(X,{\mathcal H}^ 3)\) is finite (proposition 3.3). Theorem 3.1 follows from the last two propositions. As for the unirational affine threefolds \(X=Spec(R)\) the group \(CH^ 2(R)\otimes {\mathbb{Z}}/2{\mathbb{Z}}\) is finite, the theorem gives that W(R) is finitely generated for them (corollary 4.3).