Orthogonal Pfister involutions in characteristic two (Q2448297)

Over fields of characteristic different from 2 it is well-known that a quadratic form of dimension equal to a power of 2 is anisotropic or hyperbolic over any field extension if and only if it is similar to a Pfister form. The author of the present paper studies the problem over a field of characteristic 2. Let \((A, \sigma)\) be a central simple algebra of degree equal to a power of 2 with orthogonal involution over a field \(F\). We denote the central simple algebra (resp. the algebra with involution) obtained by extending scalars over field extension \(K/F\) as \(A_K\) (resp. \((A, \sigma)_K\)). Let \(F\) be a field of characteristic 2 and let \((A, \sigma)\) be a totally decomposable \(F\)-algebra with orthogonal involution. In the main result of this paper the author shows that \((A, \sigma)_K\) is either anisotropic or metabolic for every field extension \(K/F\). As an application of the main result, the isotropy behaviour of the orthogonal involutions is determined . In this paper is also given an example of a non-totally decomposable algebra with orthogonal involution that becomes totally decomposable over every splitting field of the algebra.