Andrew.Dolphin@uni-konstanz.de

Submission: 2011, Mar 20

In this paper we present a decomposition theorem for hermitian forms over fields of characteristic 2 refining the usual Witt decomposition in this case. We apply this decomposition to algebras with involution over fields of characteristic 2 to give a complete description of the effect of passing to a generic splitting field of the algebra on the isotropy of the involution.

2010 Mathematics Subject Classification: Primary 11E81; Secondary 11E39, 12F10.

Keywords and Phrases: Central simple algebras; involutions; hermitian forms; characteristic two, generic splitting.

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