Sesquilinear forms over rings with involution (Q392436)

Let \(A\) be a ring. An involution on \(A\) is an additive map \(\sigma:A\rightarrow A\) such that \(\sigma(ab)=\sigma(b)\sigma(a)\) for all \(a,b\in A\) and \(\sigma^2\) is the identity. Let \(V\) be a right \(A\)-module of finite type. A sesquilinear form over \((A,\sigma)\) is a bi-additive map \(s:V\times V\rightarrow A\) satisfying the condition \(s(xa,yb)= \sigma(a)s(x,y)b\) for all \(x,y\in V\) and all \(a,b\in A\). The paper considers the category of sesquilinear forms over \((A,\sigma)\) defined on objects on the category of reflexive \(A\)-modules and proves that the category of sesquilinear forms is equivalent to the category of unimodular Hermitian forms in a special type category. A cancellation theorem for sesquilinear forms is proved too. The paper formulates Springer's well known theorem on isometric quadratic forms and proves an analogue of the theorem for sesquilinear forms defined on special finite-dimensional algebras and proves similar result for sesquilinear forms defined on algebras of finite rank over complete discrete valuation rings. The Hasse-Minkowski classical result on the symmetry of two quadratic forms defined over special fields is investigated in the paper in the case of sesquilinear forms defined on a finite-dimensional skew field with involution. The paper investigates Hasse principle for sesquilinear forms and proves that in some cases the genus of sesquilinear forms contains only a finite number of isometry classes of forms. The paper applies some obtained results to \(G\) -bilinear forms and generalizes the results to systems of sesquilinear forms.