On the signature of an involution (Q5896700)

It is well-known that involutions leaving the center invariant on the algebra of endomorphisms End\((V)\) of a finite-dimensional vector space \(V\) are adjoint involutions with respect to bilinear forms on \(V\) which are either symmetric or alternating. In the present paper, a definition of signature for involutions on a finite-dimensional central simple algebra over an ordered field is proposed. The signature of an \(F\)-linear involution \(\sigma\) on a central simple \(F\)-algebra is defined as the square root of the signature of the quadratic form Trd\((\sigma(x)x)\). It is shown that the signature of an involution is a non-negative integer at most equal to the degree of the algebra, and that the signature of the involution on End\((V)\) corresponding to some bilinear form \(B\) is the absolute value of the signature of \(B\). Relations are proved between the signature and the discriminant of an involution, analogous to the relations between the signature and the discriminant of a quadratic form, and applications to the decomposability of an involution are discussed.