Signatures of Hermitian forms and the Knebusch trace formula (Q2448333)

Let \(F\) be a formally real field, and \((A,\sigma)\) a central simple algebra with involution (of either kind) over \(F\). The paper is concerned with the signature of hermitian quadratic forms over \((A,\sigma)\), and provides a signature theory which is independent of the choice of a Morita equivalence. When \(F\) is real closed and \((A,\sigma) = (F,\text{id})\), the signature is due to Sylvester. There are analogous signatures for the cases when \((A,\sigma)\) is one of \(F\times F\), \(F[\sqrt{-1}]\) or the quaternion algebra \(H = (-1,-1)_F\), with the canonical involutions. More generally when \(F\) is real closed and \((A,\sigma)\) is arbitrary, the signature is defined via Morita equivalence of \((A,\sigma)\) to the underlying algebra, which is one of those listed above. The signature thus induces a group homomorphism \(W(A,\sigma) \rightarrow {\mathbb{Z}}\). The paper is motivated by the observation that a change of the Morita equivalence multiplies the signature by a constant sign. Letting \(F\) again be any formally real field, the signature of hermitian forms over \((A,\sigma)\) is defined via passage to the real closure. Fixing \((A,\sigma)\), there are `nil orderings' of \(F\) for which the signature is trivially zero (e.g. if \(\sigma\) is of orthogonal type, these are the orderings \(P\) for which \(A_P\) is matrices over \((-1,-1)_P\)). It is shown that for any other ordering, the signature is indeed non-zero for some forms. To prove the latter result, the authors generalize \textit{Knebusch} trace formula [Comment. Math. Helv. 47, 260--269 (1972; Zbl 0257.12102)]: for a finite extension \(L/F\) and a fixed real closure \(F_P\) of \(F\), the trace formula decomposes the signature over \((A \otimes L, \sigma \otimes 1)\) as the sum of signatures over the real components of \(F_P \otimes L\). Using compactness of the space of orderings \(X_F\), and the fact that the splitting of \(A\) over \(F_P\) (for a real closure \(P\)) is already realized over a finite extension of \(F\), the authors show that the signatures over non-nil orderings can be separated from zero by a finite set \(H\) of hermitian forms. This result leads to the definition of the \(H\)-signature, which is the signature described above, corrected by multiplying by the first non-zero signature of a form from \(H\). For any real closure of \(F\), this new signature is independent of the Morita equivalence. Moreover, for any fixed \(H\) and any hermitian form \(h\) over \((A,\sigma)\), the total signature \(\text{sign}^H h {\,:\,} X_F \rightarrow \mathbb{Z}\) is continuous. Finally, the trace formula is shown to hold for the \(H\)-signature.