Universal quadratic forms and Northcott property of infinite number fields

Abstract

We show that if a universal quadratic form exists over an infinite degree, totally real extension of the field of rationals $\mathbb{Q}$, then the set of totally positive integers in the extension does not have the Northcott property. In particular, this implies that no universal form exists over the compositum of all totally real Galois fields of a fixed prime degree over $\mathbb{Q}$. Further, by considering the existence of infinitely many square classes of totally positive units, we show that no classical universal form exists over the compositum of all such fields of degree $3d$ (for each fixed odd integer $d$).