TITLE: What is a metaboliser?
QUESTION [7 upvotes]: What is a "metaboliser" for a linking form? This term appears in a recent paper on the Hopf link and I cannot find any definition on the net or in any texts.
I am a professional topologist trying to review a paper.

REPLY [3 votes]: There is a definition on Wikipedia.
The metabolizer of a bilinear form $\beta(x,y)$ on a vector space $V$ is a subspace $W$ that equals its orthogonal complement $W^{\perp}$. The bilinear form itself is then called metabolic.
The metabolizer of a metabolic bilinear form is sometimes referred to as its lagrangian, see paragraph 1.C on page 17 of The Algebraic and Geometric Theory of Quadratic Forms.
For applications of this concept in the context of knot theory (which I presume is the relevant context in your case), see
Some examples related to knot sliceness, section 2.1, and
Metabolic and hyperbolic forms from knot theory, section 2.