English

Bireflectionality in special orthogonal groups

Group Theory 2024-10-01 v1

Abstract

It is shown that a transformation in the special orthogonal group SO(V) of a nondefective quadratic space over a field K is bireflectional (product of 2 involutions) if and only if it is reversible (conjugate to its inverse). Furthermore, all elements of SO(V) are bireflectional if and only if dim V is odd or divisible by 4, or V is a hyperbolic plane over GF(2) or GF(3).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2409.20088,
  title  = {Bireflectionality in special orthogonal groups},
  author = {Klaus Nielsen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.20088},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

11 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-28T19:01:57.665Z