An invariant determining the Witt class of a unitary transformation over a semisimple ring (Q1239232)

Let \(A\) be a ring with an involution \(a \to \overline{a}\), \(\lambda = \pm 1\). For any integer \(n \geq 1\), let \(M_n(A)\) denote the ring of \(n \times n\) matrices over \(A, \Lambda^\lambda_n = \{\alpha - \lambda\overline{\alpha} | \alpha \in M_n(A)\}\) where \(\overline{\alpha}\) is conjugate transpose of \(\alpha\), \[ U_{2n}(A) = \left\{ \left(\begin{matrix} \alpha & \beta \\ \gamma & \delta \end{matrix} \right) | \alpha, \beta, \gamma, \delta \in M_n(A), \alpha^{\overline{\delta}} + \lambda\beta\overline{\gamma} = 1_n, \beta\overline{\alpha}, \gamma \overline{\delta}, \overline{\gamma}\alpha \in \Lambda^\lambda_n \right\}. \] The first Witt group, \(W^\lambda_1(A)\) by definition is the commutator quotient of \(U_{2n}(A)\) (\(n\) large), \(\mod\) the group of all matrices of the form \(H(a) = \left( \begin{matrix} a & 0 \\ 0 & \overline{a}^{-1} \end{matrix} \right) \in U_{2n}(A)\) where \(a \in GL_h(A)\). The main theorem in the paper shows that for semisimple rings \(A\) the class of \(\left(\begin{matrix} \alpha & \beta \\ \gamma & \delta \end{matrix} \right)\) in \(W^\lambda_1(A)\) is determined by the cokernel of \(\alpha\), viewed as a map: \(A^n \to A^n\).