Existence

Abstract

This chapter proves that Bruhat-Tits buildings exist. It begins with a few definitions and simple observations about quadratic forms, including a 1-fold Pfister form, followed by a discussion of the existence part of the Structure Theorem for complete discretely valued fields due to H. Hasse and F. K. Schmidt. It then considers the generic unramified cases; the generic semi-ramified cases, the generic ramified cases, the wild unramified cases, the wild semi-ramified cases, and the wild ramified cases. These cases range from a unique unramified quadratic space to an unramified separable quadratic extension, a tamely ramified division algebra, a ramified separable quadratic extension, and a unique unramified quaternion division algebra. The chapter also describes ramified quaternion division algebras D₁, D₂, and D₃ over K containing a common subfield E such that E/K is a ramified separable extension.