Supertropical quadratic forms. I. (Q886953)

For any module \(V\) over a semiring \(R\), a quadratic form on \(V\) is a function \(q : V \rightarrow R\) with \(q(ax) = a^2q(x)\) for any \(a \in R\), \(x \in V\), together with a symmetric bilinear form \(b : V \times V \rightarrow R\) such that \(q(x + y) = q(x) + q(y) + b(x,y)\) for any \(x, y \in V\). Any such bilinear form \(b\) will be called a companion of \(q\), and the pair \((q, b)\) will be called a quadratic pair on \(V\) . The authors study quadratic forms over semirings in great detail. The chapter headings indicate the scope of the investigation: Quadratic forms over a semiring; Quasilinear quadratic forms; Rigidity; The quasilinear-rigid decomposition; Upper bound semirings; Companions on a free module; The companions of a quadratic form over a tangible supersemifield; A closer study of Rig(q); The supertropicalizations of a quadratic form. In particular they show that the quadratic form \(q\) can always be written as a sum of quadratic forms \(q = q_{QL} +\rho\), where \(q_{QL}(x + y) = q_{QL}(x) + q_{QL}(y)\), and \(\rho\) has a unique companion. If \(R\) is supertropical, the authors obtain an explicit classification of the decompositions \(q = q_{QL} + \rho\) and of all companions \(b\) of \(q\), and they show how this relates to the tropicalization procedure.