Real stable ranks (Q1176115)

A unital Banach algebra \(B\) is symmetric if it has a linear anti- isomorphic involution \(x\to x'\); its orthogonal subgroup is \(\{b\): \(b'=b^{-1}\}\). The algebra of \(n\times n\) matrices over a commutative Banach algebra is symmetric and the orthogonal subgroup of matrices is used to define ``real'' stable ranks of the algebra which allow a finer analysis of its structure.