Lattice-ordered reduced special groups (Q703835)

The notion of a special group (SG) was introduced by \textit{M. A. Dickmann} and \textit{F. Miraglia} in Mem. Am. Math. Soc. 689 (2000; Zbl 1052.11027), as an abstract, first-order axiomatization of the theory of quadratic forms. The primary motivation of the paper under review is a very general and highly abstract ``local-global principle'' (Open Problem 1) for reduced special groups (RSG) and positive-existential sentences in the specific language for SGs. As this question seems to be far too general to admit a positive answer, the authors consider that even partial answers may be of interest, taking into account that many significant properties of RSGs are known to be expressed by positive-existential sentences and, in many cases, are known to hold for finite RSGs. The authors show that the property of a RSG to be a lattice is preserved under some standard constructions on RSGs. On the other hand, the authors prove that the lattice property fails for the RSGs of function fields of real algebraic varieties over a uniquely ordered field dense in its real closure, e.g. \(\mathbb Q\), unless their stability index is \(1\), in which case the lattice is even a Boolean algebra. An affirmative answer to Open Problem 1 is obtained in the case of the RSG associated to \(\mathbb{Q}(X)\). The last part of the paper is devoted to the investigation of the meaning of Open Problem 1 for formally real fields, in terms of their orders and real valuations.