A short proof of Hua's fundamental theorem of the geometry of Hermitian matrices. (Q1812478)

The authors give a new and simple proof for the fundamental theorem of the geometry of Hermitian matrices due to Loo-Keng Hua. This theorem describes for \(n\geq 2\) all bijections of \(H_n\) (i.e. the set of Hermitian \(n\times n\) matrices over the complex numbers) onto itself which preserve adjacency in both directions. Here, as usual, two matrices \(A,B\in H_n\) are said to be adjacent if \(\text{rank }(A-B)=1\).