Stability for Hermitian \(K_1\) (Q1575025)

The general Hermitian group \(GH_{2n}\) and its elementary subgroup \(EH_{2n}\) are the analogues in the theory of Hermitian forms of the general linear group \(GL_n\) and its elementary subgroup \(E_n\). The authors introduce these groups for a ring \(R\) with involution \( \bar{} \) and form parameter \(\Lambda\). The elementary matrices are more complicated than usual: They may have quite a few nontrivial off-diagonal entries. The main result of the paper is a stability theorem for Hermitian \(K_1\), saying that \[ GH_{2n}/EH_{2n}\to GH_{2n+2}/EH_{2n+2} \] is an isomorphism for \(n\) large with respect to a suitable stable range condition. In order to state the theorem in a sharp form, the authors introduce their stable range condition \(\Lambda S_{d+1}\) which encodes what they need. As usual for a stable range condition, \(\Lambda S_{d+1}\) is satisfied when the base ring \(R\) is module finite over a central subring with maximal ideal spectrum of dimension~\(d\).