An injectivity result for Hermitian forms over local orders

Abstract

Let $\Lambda$ be a ring endowed with an involution $a \mapsto \tilde{a}$. We say that two units $a$ and $b$ of $\Lambda$ fixed under the involution are congruent if there exists an element $u \in \Lambda^{\times}$ such that $a = ub\tilde{u}$. We denote by $\mathcal{H}(\Lambda)$ the set of congruence classes. In this paper we consider the case where $\Lambda$ is an order with involution in a semisimple algebra $A$ over a local field and study the question of whether the natural map $\mathcal{H}(\Lambda) \rightarrow \mathcal{H}(\Lambda)$ induced by inclusion is injective. We give sufficient conditions on the order $\Lambda$ for this map to be injective and give applications to hermitian forms over group rings.