A note on quadratic forms

Abstract

For a field extension $L/K$ we consider maps that are quadratic over $L$ but whose polarisation is only bilinear over $K$. Our main result is that all such are automatically quadratic forms over $L$ in the usual sense if and only if $L/K$ is formally unramified. In particular, this shows that over finite and number fields, one of the axioms in the standard definition of quadratic forms is superfluous.

13 pages, v3: Minor changes, to appear in Bulletin of the LMS