Highly degenerate quadratic forms over finite fields of characteristic 2

Let K/F be an extension of finite fields of characteristic two. We consider quadratic forms written as the trace of xR(x), where R(x) is a linearized polynomial. We show all quadratic forms can be so written-in an essentially unique way. We classify those R, with coefficients 0 or 1, where the form has a codimension 2 radical. This is applied to maximal Artin-Schreier curves and factorizations of linearized polynomials. (c) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.