Paper 4, Section II, F

Linear Algebra | Part IB, 2010

(i) Show that the group On(R)O_{n}(\mathbb{R}) of orthogonal n×nn \times n real matrices has a normal subgroup SOn(R)={AOn(R)detA=1}S O_{n}(\mathbb{R})=\left\{A \in O_{n}(\mathbb{R}) \mid \operatorname{det} A=1\right\}.

(ii) Show that On(R)=SOn(R)×{±In}O_{n}(\mathbb{R})=S O_{n}(\mathbb{R}) \times\left\{\pm I_{n}\right\} if and only if nn is odd.

(iii) Show that if nn is even, then On(R)O_{n}(\mathbb{R}) is not the direct product of SOn(R)S O_{n}(\mathbb{R}) with any normal subgroup.

[You may assume that the only elements of On(R)O_{n}(\mathbb{R}) that commute with all elements of On(R)O_{n}(\mathbb{R}) are ±In\pm I_{n}.]

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