Unimodular families of symmetric matrices

We introduce the volume-preserving equivalence among symmetric matrix-valued map-germs which is the unimodular version of Bruce's $\mathcal{G}$-equivalence. The key concept to deduce unimodular classification out of classification relative to $\mathcal{G}$-equivalence is symmetrical quasi-homogeneity, which is a generalization of the condition for a $2 \times 2$ symmetric matrix-valued map-germ in Corollary~2.1 (ii) by Bruce, Goryunov and Zakalyukin. If a $\mathcal{G}$-equivalence class contains a symmetrically quasi-homogeneous representative, the class coincides with that relative to the volume-preserving equivalence (up to orientation reversing diffeomorphism in case if the ground field is real). By using that we show that all the simple classes relative to $\mathcal{G}$-equivalence in Bruce's list coincides with those relative to the volume preserving equivalence. Then, we classify map-germs from the plane to the set of $2 \times 2$ and $3 \times 3$ real symmetric matrices of corank at most $1$ and of $\mathcal{G}_e$-codimension less than $9$ and we show some of the normal forms split into two different unimodular singularities. We provide several examples to illustrate that non simplicity does not imply non symmetrical quasi-homogeneity and the condition that a map-germ is symmetrically quasi-homogeneous is stronger than one that each component of the map-germ is quasi-homogeneous. We also present an example of non symmetrically quasi-homogeneous normal form relative to $\mathcal{G}$ and its corresponding formal unimodular normal form.