Lattices and orders in quaternion algebras with involution. (Q855342)

Let \(A\) be a central quaternion division algebra over a field \(K\), endowed with a unitary involution, and let \(F\subset K\) be the fixed subfield. This paper studies lattices and orders of \(A\), through their interaction with the involution. Assume \(F\) is the field of fractions of a Dedekind domain \(P\). An involution \(\tau\) of \(A\) is said to be optimal with respect to a maximal order \(\Lambda\) of \(A\), if \(d(\Lambda_\tau)=d(\Lambda)\cap P\), where \(\Lambda_\tau\) are the symmetric elements, and \(d\) denotes the discriminant. Let \(R\) denote the integral closure of \(P\) in \(K\). An involution \(\tau\) is special with respect to \(\Lambda\) if, for every prime \(\mathfrak p\) dividing the discriminant of \(R\) over \(P\), the completion of \(\Lambda_\tau\) with respect to \(\mathfrak p\) is a matrix algebra. It is shown that any maximal order has a special involution. The standard construction of quaternion algebras from Hermitian \(2\)-dimensional forms over \(K/F\) is extended, to provide a correspondence between forms (up to similarity) and \(P\)-orders containing \(R\), up to isomorphism. When \(P\) is local, the correspondence is one-to-one. A \(P\)-suborder \(O\) of a fixed maximal order \(\Lambda\) of \(A\) is said to be optimally embedded, if \(O=FO\cap\Lambda\). The previous results are used to determine the genus of any optimally embedded \(P\)-suborder of \(\Lambda\).