Witt groups and torsion Picard groups of smooth real curves

Abstract

The Witt group of a smooth curve over a real closed field is explicitely calculated. The method uses a comparison theorem between the graded Witt group and the etale cohomology groups. In the second part of the paper, the torsion Picard group of a smooth real curve is also computed. The calculation depends on a new invariant introduced here. We prove that several problems of real algebraic geometry are related to this invariant.