Isotropy of certain quadratic forms of dimensions 7 and 8 over the function field of a quadric (Q2564682)

This is the first of a series of three papers announced by the author in C. R. Acad. Sci., Paris, Sér. I 323, No. 5, 495-499 (1996; see Zbl 0865.11030 above). Let \(\varphi\) be an \(F\)-anisotropic quadratic form and \(\dim\varphi =8\), \(\text{discr} \varphi =1\). Assume the index of the Clifford algebra \(C(\varphi)\) is \(\leq 4\). A complete characterization is given for quadratic forms \(\psi\) with the property that \(\varphi\) becomes isotropic over the function field \(F(\psi)\) of the projective quadric \(\psi=0\) (except in the case when \(\dim \psi=4\) and \(\psi\) is not similar to a Pfister form). There is a corollary for the case where \(\varphi\) is replaced with a form of dimension 7. The proofs use not only Merkurjev's and Merkurjev and Suslin's theorems that \(e^2\) and \(e^3\) are isomorphisms, but also the determination of the cohomological kernels \(\ker(H^2F \to H^2K)\) and \(\ker (H^3F \to H^3K)\), where \(K\) is the function field of the Severi-Brauer variety of \(C(\varphi)\).