Linear and Multilinear Algebra, Vol. 54, No. 6, December 2006, 391–396 A note on orthogonal similitude groups C. RYAN VINROOT* Department of Mathematics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Homi Bhabha Road, Mumbai – 400 005, India Communicated by R. Guralnick (Received 18 October 2004; in final form 24 March 2005) Let V be a vector space over the field F such that charðF Þ 6¼ 2, and let V have a symmetric nondegenerate bilinear form. Let GOðV Þ be the orthogonal similitude group for this symmetric form, with similitude character . We prove that if g 2 GOðV Þ with ðgÞ¼ , then g ¼ t1t2 2 where t1 is an orthogonal involution, and t2 is such that t2 ¼ I and ðt2Þ¼ . As an applica- tion, we obtain an expression for the sum of the degrees of the irreducible characters of GOðn, FqÞ for odd q. Keywords: Similitude group; Orthogonal group; Factorization of matrices; Characters of the similitude group over a finite field 2000 AMS Subject Classifications: 15A23; 20G40 1. Introduction This note is an addendum to [1], where we obtain a factorization in the symplectic similitude group. In Theorem 1 below, we obtain a factorization in the group of orthogonal similitudes GOðV Þ, where V is an F-vector space with charðF Þ 6¼ 2, and the similitude character is . The method is the same as in [1], and the notation established there is freely used. In the proof of Theorem 1, we refer to [1] to all parts that immediately apply to the orthogonal case, while any changes that are needed in the proof are given specifically. As an application of Theorem 1, we use a result of Gow [2] on the orthogonal group over a finite field to obtain information on the characters of the orthogonal similitude group over a finite field, as given in Theorem 2 and Corollary 2. In a paper to appear by Adler and Prasad [3], Corollary 1 is used to prove a theorem on p-adic groups. In particular, if V is a vector space over a p-adic field, Adler and Prasad prove that any irreducible admissible representation of GOðV Þ restricted to OðV Þ is multiplicity free, and they also prove the corresponding statement for the symplectic similitude group. *Email: [email protected] Linear and Multilinear Algebra ISSN 0308-1087 print: ISSN 1563-5139 online ß 2006 Taylor & Francis http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/03081080500209588 392 C. R. Vinroot 2. The main theorem Let V be an F-vector space, with charðF Þ 6¼ 2, equipped with a nondegenerate bilinear symmetric form h, i : V  V ! F. Then the orthogonal group of similitudes of V with respect to this form is the group GOðV Þ¼fg 2 GLðV Þ: hgv, gwi¼ðgÞhv, wi for some ðgÞ2F  for all v, w 2 V g. Then : GOðV Þ!F  is a multiplicative character called the similitude character, and the orthogonal group is OðV Þ¼kerðÞ. THEOREM 1 Let g be an element of GOðV Þ satisfying ðgÞ¼ . Then we may factor g as 2 g ¼ t1t2, where t1 is an orthogonal involution and t2 satisfies t2 ¼ I and ðt2Þ¼ . Proof Wonenburger [4] proved that any element of OðV Þ is the product of two orthogonal involutions. So if ðgÞ¼ is a square in F, then the theorem follows directly from Wonenburger’s result. So we assume is not a square. As in [1], for any monic polynomial f 2 F ½x of degree d, define the -adjoint of f to be f^ðxÞ¼f ð0ÞÀ1xdf ð=xÞ, and define a monic polynomial to be self- -adjoint if f^ ¼ f. Then, for any g 2 GOðV Þ, the minimal polynomial of g is self- -adjoint. All of the results in sections 2 and 3 of [1] are valid for transformations g which are self- -adjoint, as the proofs only use this fact. These results reduce us to looking at the case that either g is a cyclic transformation for V, that is V is generated by vectors of the form giv for some v 2 V, or the case that g has minimal polynomial of the form qðxÞs, where q(x) is an irreducible self- -adjoint polynomial. We deal with the cyclic case first. In [1, Proposition 3(i)], we prove that if g 2 GLðV Þ is a cyclic transformation with self- -adjoint minimal polynomial, ignoring any inner 2 2 product structure, then we can factor g ¼ t1t2 such that t1 ¼ I and t2 ¼ I. This is proven as follows. If V is cyclic for the vector v, then we let P be the space spanned by vectors of the form ðgi þ igiÞv and let Q be the space spanned by the vectors of the form ðgi À igiÞv. Then V ¼ P È Q, and the transformation having P as its þ1 eigen- space and Q as its À1 eigenspace is exactly the involution t1 that we seek. For the case i i i that g 2 GOðV Þ, we must show that this t1 is orthogonal. Let ðg þ g Þv 2 P and ðg j À jg jÞv 2 Q. Then we have: ðgi þ igÀiÞv, ðg j À jgÀjÞv ¼ðgi þ igÀiÞv, g jv À giv, jgÀjv À igÀiv, jg Àjv ¼ðgi þ igÀiÞv, g jv À g jv, igÀiv À g jv, giv ¼ðgi þ igÀiÞv, g jv À g jv, ðgi þ igÀiÞv ¼ 0: So P and Q are mutually orthogonal. Now let u and u0 be any two vectors in V ¼ P È Q. 0 0 0 0 0 0 Write u ¼ w þ y, u ¼ w þ y , where w, w 2 P and y, y 2 Q. We compute ht1u, t1u i: 0 ¼ ð þ Þ ð 0 þ 0Þ ¼ À 0 À 0 t1u, t1u t1 w y , t1 w y w y, w y ¼ 0 þ 0 À 0 À 0 w, w y, y y, w w, y ¼ w, w0 þ y, y0 : A note on orthogonal similitude groups 393 While computing hu, u0i gives us: u, u0 ¼ w þ y, w0 þ y0 ¼ w, w0 þ y, y0 þ y, w0 þ w, y0 ¼ w, w0 þ y, y0 : 0 0 Therefore, we have ht1u, t1u i¼hu, u i, and t1 is orthogonal. Since g satisfies ðgÞ¼ , then t2 ¼ t1g satisfies ðt2Þ¼ . We now deal with the case that the minimal polynomial of g is of the form qðxÞs, where q(x) is irreducible and self- -adjoint. It follows from [1, Lemmas 4 and 5] and the cyclic case above that we may assume that V is the sum of two cyclic spaces, and sÀ1 further we may assume that for any u1 2 V satisfying qðgÞ u1 6¼ 0, the cyclic space U1 generated by u1 is degenerate, and for an appropriate u2 2 V,wehave V ¼ U1 È U2 where U2 is the cyclic space generated by u2. We follow the proof of [1, Proposition 3(iii)]. We may write U1 ¼ P1 È Q1 where P1 is spanned by vectors k k Àk k k Àk of the form ðg þ g Þu1 and Q1 is spanned by vectors of the form ðg À g Þu1. There are two different cases, the first is when either q(x) is relatively prime to x2 À 2 ? or qðxÞ¼x À and s is odd. In this case, we find a u2 2 Q1 , and V ¼ U1 È U2 where U2 is cyclically generated by u2. Then U2 ¼ P2 È Q2, where P2 is spanned by vectors k k Àk k k Àk of the form ðg þ g Þu2 and Q2 is spanned by vectors of the form ðg À g Þu2. Letting P ¼ P1 È P2 and Q ¼ Q1 È Q2, we are able to show that if t1 is the involution 2 with P as its þ1 eigenspace and Q as its À1 eigenspace, then ðt1gÞ ¼ I (for the symplectic group, we actually show this in the second case of Proposition 3(iii)). We need to show that t1 is orthogonal. From the cyclic case above, we have Pi ? Qi for i ¼ 1, 2. In the proof of [1, Proposition 3(iii)], we show that Pi ? Qj for i 6¼ j. So now P ? Q, and from the argument in the cyclic case above, we have that t1 is orthogonal, and so t2 ¼ t1g satisfies ðt2Þ¼ . 2 ? In the case that qðxÞ¼x À and s is even, we are able to find a u2 2 P1 such that V ¼ U1 È U2, where U2 is the space cyclically generated by u2. We define P2 and Q2 as before. We let P ¼ P1 È Q2 be the þ1 eigenspace and Q ¼ P2 È Q1 be the À1 eigen- 2 space of an involution t1, and this satisfies ðt1gÞ ¼ I. To show t1 is orthogonal, we need only show that P ? Q and appeal to the cyclic case above. We have already shown Pi ? Qi for i ¼ 1, 2, so now we need P1 ? P2 and Q1 ? Q2. We have: ÀÁÀÁ k k Àk l l Àl g Æ g u1, g Æ g u2 ÀÁ ÀÁ k k Àk l k k Àk l Àl ¼ g Æ g u1, g u2 Æ g Æ g u1, g u2 ÀÁ ÀÁ l Àl k k Àk l k k Àk ¼ g g Æ g u1, u2 Æ g g Æ g u1, u2 ÀÁÀÁ l l Àl k k Àk ¼ g Æ g g Æ g u1, u2 ¼ 0, since ÀÁÀÁ l l Àl k k Àk g Æ g g Æ g u1 ÀÁÀÁ lþk lþk ðlþkÞ k lÀk lÀk ðlÀkÞ ¼ g þ g u1 Æ g þ g u1 2 P1 394 C.