Relative unitary commutator calculus, and applications. (Q661900)

In the study of classical groups over rings, it is well-known that localisation is one of the most powerful ideas which allows to reduce many important problems over various classes of rings subject to commutativity conditions to similar problems for semi-local rings. Localisation comes in a number of versions. The two most familiar ones are localisation and patching, proposed by \textit{D. Quillen}, [Invent. Math. 36, 167-171 (1976; Zbl 0337.13011)] and \textit{A. A. Suslin}, [Izv. Akad. Nauk SSSR, Ser. Mat. 41, 235-252 (1977; Zbl 0354.13009)], and localisation-completion, proposed by \textit{A. Bak}, [K-Theory 4, No. 4, 363-397 (1991; Zbl 0741.19001)]. In the paper under review the authors revisit localisation and patching method in the setting of generalised unitary groups. Introducing certain subgroups of relative elementary unitary groups, they develop relative versions of the conjugation calculus and the commutator calculus in unitary groups, which are both more general, and substantially easier than the ones available in the literature. As an application, the following mixed commutator formula is proved \[ \mathrm{[EU}(2n,I,\Gamma),\mathrm{GU}(2n,J,\Delta)]=[\mathrm{EU}(2n,I,\Gamma),\mathrm{EU}(2n,J,\Delta)], \] where \((I,\Gamma)\) and \((J,\Delta)\) are two form ideals of a form ring \((A,\Lambda)\). This answers two problems posed in a paper by Alexei Stepanov and Nikolai Vavilov.