Round forms of higher degree (Q1936953)

In this paper, the author considers finite-dimensional forms of degree \(d\geq 2\) over fields \(k\) of characteristic \(0\) or \(>d\), in other words homogeneous polynomials of degree \(d\) in \(n<\infty\) variables that are assumed to be nondegenerate, i.e. the symmetric \(d\)-linear map that is naturally associated to such a form is nondegenerate. \(n\) is called the dimension of the form. There are the usual notions of isomorphism, orthogonal sum, and tensor product of forms. A form of degree \(d\) in the variables \(x_i\), \(1\leq i\leq n\), is called diagonal if it is of the shape \(a_1x_1^d+\ldots +a_nx_n^d\), \(a_i\in k\), and one writes \(\langle a_1,\ldots,a_n\rangle\). For a form \(\varphi\) defined on the \(k\)-vector space \(V\) one defines its value set to be \(D_k(\varphi)=\{\varphi(x)\,|\,x\in V\}\cap k^*\) and one calls \(\varphi\) \(s\)-round for a positive integer \(s\) if \(\varphi\cong a^s\varphi\) for all \(a\in D_k(\varphi)\). Round forms are just \(1\)-round forms, i.e. \(D_k(\varphi)\) is contained in the group of similarity factors \(G_k(\varphi)=\{ a\in k^*\,|\,\varphi\cong a\varphi\}\). Round quadratic forms (the case \(d=2\)) play an important role in the theory of quadratic forms and have been studied extensively. Therefore, the present paper only deals with the case \(d>2\). Various basic properties of round forms are investigated and presented. It is shown that \(|G_k(\varphi)/k^{*d}|\leq n\) for \(\varphi\cong\langle a_1,\ldots,a_n\rangle\) (Theorem 1). For those \(s\)-round forms that satisfy that \(D_k(\varphi)/k^{*d}\) is a nontrivial subgroup of \(k^*/k^{*d}\), the author derives an orthogonal decomposition into certain types of indecomposable forms (Theorems 3 and 4). The paper concludes with some examples and some methods how to construct round forms, for example by using norms of field extensions or norms of structurable algebras.