Pairs of Quadratic Forms over p-Adic Fields

Abstract

Given two quadratic forms $Q_1, Q_2$ over a $p$-adic field $K$ in $n$ variables, we consider the pencil $\mathcal{P}_K(Q_1, Q_2)$, which contains all nontrivial $K$-linear combinations of $Q_1$ and $Q_2$. We define $D$ to be the maximal dimension of a subspace in $K^n$ on which $Q_1$ and $Q_2$ both vanish. We define $H$ to be the maximal number of hyperbolic planes that a form in $\mathcal{P}_K(Q_1, Q_2)$ splits off over $K$. We will determine which values for $(D, H)$ are possible for a nonsingular pair of quadratic forms over a $p$-adic field $K$.