Canonical matrices of bilinear and sesquilinear forms Roger A. Horn Department of Mathematics, University of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-0090,
[email protected] Vladimir V. Sergeichuk∗ Institute of Mathematics, Tereshchenkivska 3, Kiev, Ukraine,
[email protected] Abstract Canonical matrices are given for bilinear forms over an algebraically closed or real closed field; • sesquilinear forms over an algebraically closed field and over real • quaternions with any nonidentity involution; and sesquilinear forms over a field F of characteristic different from • 2 with involution (possibly, the identity) up to classification of Hermitian forms over finite extensions of F; the canonical matri- ces are based on any given set of canonical matrices for similarity arXiv:0709.2408v2 [math.RT] 3 Oct 2007 over F. A method for reducing the problem of classifying systems of forms and linear mappings to the problem of classifying systems of linear map- pings is used to construct the canonical matrices. This method has its This is the authors’ version of a work that was accepted for publication in Linear Algebra and its Applications (2007), doi:10.1016/j.laa.2007.07.023. ∗The research was done while this author was visiting the University of Utah supported by NSF grant DMS-0070503 and the University of S˜ao Paulo supported by FAPESP, processo 05/59407-6. 1 origins in representation theory and was devised in [V.V. Sergeichuk, Math. USSR-Izv. 31 (1988) 481–501]. AMS classification: 15A21, 15A63. Keywords: Canonical matrices; Bilinear and sesquilinear forms; Congruence and *congruence; Quivers and algebras with involution. 1 Introduction We give canonical matrices of bilinear forms over an algebraically closed or real closed field (familiar examples are C and R), and of sesquilinear forms over an algebraically closed field and over P-quaternions (P is a real closed field) with respect to any nonidentity involution.