On sesquilinear forms over fields with involution Original Research Article

Let k be a field of characteristic ≠2 with an involution σ. A matrix A is split if there is a change of variables Q such that (Qσ)TAQ consists of two complementary diagonal blocks. We classify all matrices that do not split. As a consequence we obtain a new proof for the following result. Given a square matrix A there is a matrix S such that (Sσ)TAS=AT and SσS=I.