Automatic search of automorphisms of Witt rings

The investigation of strong automorphisms of Witt rings is a difficult task because of variety of their structures. Cordes Theorem, known in literature as Harrison-Cordes criterion (cf. [1, Proposition 2.2], [3, Harrison's Criterion]), makes the task of describing all the strong automorphisms of a given (abstract) Witt ring W = (G, R) easier. By this theorem, it suffices to find all such automorphisms ơ of the group G that map the distiguished element -1 of the group G into itself (i.e. ơ(-1) = -1) in which the value sets of 1-fold Pfister forms are preserved in the following sense: ơ(D(1, α)) = D(1, ơ(α)) for all α ∈ G. We use the above criterion and the well-known structure of the group G as a vector space over two-element field F2 for searching all automorphisms of this group. Then we check Harrison-Cordes criterion for found automorpisms and obtain all the automorpisms of a Witt ring W. The task is easy for small rings (with small groups G). For searching of all strong automorpisms of bigger Witt rings we use a computer which automatizes the procedure described above. We present the algorithm for finding strong automorphisms of a Witt rings with finite group G and show how this algorithm can be optimized.