Products of sums of squares (Q794696)

The author studies a formula of the type \((x^ 2_ 1+...+x^ 2_ r)(y^ 2_ 1+...+y^ 2_ s)=z^ 2_ 1+...+z^ 2_ n,\) where \(X=(x_ 1,...,x_ r)\) and \(Y=(y_ 1,...,y_ s)\) are systems of indeterminates, and each \(z_ i\) is bilinear in X and Y with coefficients in a field F of characteristic not 2. A triple (r,s,n) is called admissible if such formula exists. The problem of admissibility is classical and it is known to be posed by Hurwitz in 1898. The main goal of this paper is to gather all more important results related to it. The author starts with the classical theorems of Hurwitz and Radon for triples of size (r,n,n). In the second section of the paper the admissibility over the field of real numbers is considered and some results obtained by topological tools are presented. The third section reports on results on admissibility over more general fields suggesting that it does not depend on the basic field. In the last section the author allows the \(z_ i\) in the formula to be rational functions in X,Y and he considers so-called rational admissible triples. The problem of rational admissibility is completely solved by using Pfister's theory of quadratic forms over fields. It is worth adding that the paper contains a long list (above 90 items) of references from different branches of mathematics which relate to the problem of products of sums of squares.