Stability in Witt rings and abelian subgroups of pro-2-Galois groups (Q919026)

For a field \(F\) of characteristic not two, the author introduces the invariant \(a(F)\) defined to be the largest integer \(m\) such that the Galois group \(\mathrm{Gal}(F(2)/F)\) has a closed torsion free abelian subgroup of rank \(m\). Here \(F(2)\) is the quadratic closure of \(F\). The invariant \(a(F)\) is determined in a number of cases including \(F\) a rigid field or a function field over the real and complex numbers. It is shown that \(a(F)=a(K)\) for any finite 2-extension \(K/F\) and conjectured that \(a(F)\leq a(K)\) for any finite extension \(K/F\). The connection between \(a(F)\) and \(a(F_v)\) is established, where \(v\) is a nondyadic 2-henselian valuation on \(F\) and \(F_v\) is the residue field. It is shown that \(a(F)\leq \text{st}(F)+1\) for any field \(F\), where \(\text{st}(F)\) is the stability index of \(F\), i.e. the \(\min\{n : I^{n+1}F=2I^nF\}\). If \(F\) is Pythagorean, then \(a(F)=\text{st}(F)\), and if \(F/k\) is a finitely generated extension of transcendence degree \(n\), then \(a(F)=n\) if and only if \(k((-1)^{1/2})\) is hereditarily quadratically closed.