HIGHER DEGREE HYPERBOLIC FORMS

Abstract

We define higher degree hyperbolic forms, analogous to the quadratic hyperbolic forms. We prove the following descent result. Let f be a form of degree d ≥ 3 over a field F of characteristic 0, and let K|f be a field extension. Then if f is equivalent over K to a hyperbolic form, f must already be equivalent to it over F. We also prove that in the monoid of equivalence classes of forms defined over F of a fixed degree d ≥ 3, under the tensor product, the submonoid generated by the equivalence classes of the hyperbolic forms is free. The proofs of these results involve the calculation of the centres and the Lie algebras of the higher degree hyperbolic forms. For the convenience of the reader we expound some of Harrison's seminal paper [5].