Discriminants of orthogonal involutions on central simple algebras with tame gauges. (Q640910)

The starting point of the paper under review are the results of \textit{M. Chacron, H. Dherte, J.-P. Tignol, A. R. Wadsworth} and \textit{V. I. Yanchevskiĭ} [Pac. J. Math. 167, No. 1, 49-79 (1995; Zbl 0826.16013)] concerning the computation of the discriminants of involutions of the first kind on central division algebras over Henselian valued fields of residue characteristic different from \(2\). The paper under review obtains analogous results for orthogonal involutions on tame central simple algebras with simple residue algebras over a wide class of Henselian valued fields of arbitrary residue characteristic. They have been deduced from a general formula for the discriminant \(\text{disc}(\sigma)\) of a graded involution \(\sigma\) of orthogonal type of a graded central simple algebra \(A\) over a graded field \(F\). This formula is obtained under the hypothesis that the subalgebra \(A_0\) of homogeneous elements of \(A\) of degree zero is simple and of even degree over \(F\). In particular, it yields \(\text{disc}(\sigma)=1\), provided that \(A\) is not inertially split or the involution of \(A_0\) induced by \(\sigma\) is of the second kind. The proofs rely on various aspects of the relationship between graded simple algebras over graded fields and simple algebras over valued fields. Here we mention only the fact that tame central simple algebras over Henselian valued fields are endowed with a tame gauge.