Separable extensions of orthogonal involutions in characteristic two (Q1703200)

A central simple \(F\)-algebra with involution \((A,\sigma)\) is said to be ``decomposable'' if it can be written (up to isomorphism) as a tensor product of quaternion algebras with involutions. A conjecture proposed by Eva Bayer, originally under the assumption that \(\operatorname{char}(F)\neq 2\), suggests that the following properties are equivalent: (1) \((A,\sigma)\) is totally decomposable; (2) For every field extension \(K/F\), \((A,\sigma)_K\) is either anisotropic or metabolic; (3) For every splitting field \(K\) of \(A\), \((A,\sigma)_K\) is adjoint to a Pfister form. The main result (Theorem 4.6) of the paper is the proof of the conjecture in the case of fields \(F\) of \(\operatorname{char}(F)=2\), and algebras \(A\) of degree a power of 2 with anisotropic orthogonal involution \(\sigma\). The author proves this by showing (Theorem 4.4) that under the same conditions, \((A,\sigma)\) is totally decomposable if and only if \((A,\sigma)_K\) for a separable field extension \(K/F\). It should be noted that Theorem 4.4 does not hold true when \(\sigma\) is isotropic, as the author explains in Remark 4.5.