Motivic equivalence of affine quadrics (Q1751046)

Let \(k\) be a field of characteristic different from \(2\). For every quadratic form \(q\) over \(k\), denote by \(A_q\) the affine quadric defined by the equation \(q=1\), and \(M(A_q)\) the motive of the affine quadric in \(DM(k,\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z})\), Voevodsky's category of mixed motives with \(\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}\) coefficients. If two quadratic forms \(p\) and \(q\) are isomorphic, then the motives \(M(A_p)\) and \(M(A_q)\) are isomorphic; the main result of this article shows that the converse also holds. Using Izhboldin's theorem [\textit{O.T. Izhboldin}, Doc. Math. 3, 341--351 (1998; Zbl 0957.11019)] and the criterion of motivic equivalence of quadratic forms [\textit{N.A. Karpenko}, Math. Ann. 317, No. 3, 585--611 (2000; Zbl 0965.11015)], the authors reduce the problem to prove that if \(M(A_p)\) and \(M(A_q)\) are isomorphic, then the quadratic forms \(p\) and \(q\) have the same dimension and the same Witt index after any field extension, and the same holds for the quadratic forms \(p'=p\perp\langle-1\rangle\) and \(q'=q\perp\langle-1\rangle\). They give two proofs for this statement: the first one uses classical methods in the study of projective homogeneous varieties, and the second one uses the ``generalized geometric fixed point functor'' developed by the first author [Doc. Math. 22, 363--395 (2017; Zbl 1420.14011)].