Ricardo Baeza Rodríguez

Ricardo Baeza Rodríguez is a Chilean mathematician who works as a professor at the University of Talca. He earned his Ph.D. in 1970 from Saarland University, under the joint supervision of Robert W. Berger and Manfred Knebusch. His research interest is in number theory. He was the 2009 winner of the Chilean National Prize for Exact Sciences. In 2012, he became one of the inaugural fellows of the American Mathematical Society, the only Chilean to be so honored.

Research In 1990, Baeza proved the norm theorem over characteristic two; it had been previously proved in other characteristics. The theorem states that if q is a nonsingular quadratic form over a field F, and be a monic irreducible polynomial (with the corresponding field extension), then if and only if is hyperbolic. In particular, if denotes the Witt group of quadratic forms over a field F, then one can construct a group and an isomorphism for every value of n. Using this result, they deduced the characteristic two analogue of Knebusch's degree conjecture.

Publications