The Witt group of a discretely valued field and the fundamental filtration (Q2247753)

Let \(K\) be a field with valuation \(\mathfrak{v}\). Let \(W_q K\) be the Witt group of nonsingular quadratic forms over \(F\), and \(I_q K\) be its subgroup of even-dimension forms. There is also the Witt ring \(W K\) of nonsingular symmetric bilinear forms over \(K\), whose fundamental ideal of even-dimensional forms is denoted by \(I K\). The group \(W_q K\) is endowed with a natural module structure over \(W_K\) with the tensor product \(\otimes\). Write \(I_q^{m+1} K\) for \(I^m K \otimes I_q K\). This gives rise to a descending filtration \[W_q K \supseteq I_q K \supseteq I_q^2 K \supseteq \dots\] On the other hand, by taking \((W_q K)_n\) to be the subgroup generated by scalar products of forms \([1,\alpha]=u^2-uv+\alpha v^2\) with \(\mathfrak{v}(\alpha) \geq -n\), one obtains an ascending chain \[(W_q K)_0 \subseteq (W_q K)_1 \subseteq (W_q K)_2 \subseteq \dots \] The main theorem of this paper connects the two concepts in the following way: \(I_q^{m+1} K \cap (W_q K)_n = I^m K \otimes (W_q K)_n\). Reviewer's comment: the \(w\)-invariant of a Galois field extension of \(\mathfrak{v}\)-valued fields \(L/K\) is defined to be the minimum of \(\mathfrak{v}(\operatorname{Tr}(t))-\mathfrak{v}(t)\) where \(t\) ranges over all elements of \(L\). When \(L/K\) is quadratic, its norm form is \([1,\alpha]\) where \(\alpha\) can be chosen to be an element of value \(-2w(L/K)\). This makes the connection between the definition of \((W_q K)_n\) and the \(w\)-invariant of quadratic field extensions and motivates the study of those groups.