Nonnegative polynomials and their Carathéodory number

In 1888 Hilbert showed that every nonnegative homogeneous polynomial with real coefficients of degree $2d$ in $n$ variables is a sum of squares if and only if $d=1$ (quadratic forms), $n=2$ (binary forms) or $(n,d)=(3,2)$ (ternary quartics). In these cases, it is interesting to compute canonical expressions for these decompositions. Starting from Carathéodory's Theorem, we compute the Carathéodory number of Hilbert cones of quadratic forms and binary forms.