On the semiaxes of touching quadrics (Q1818236)

The author investigates conditions for the semiaxes of two quadrics \(Q,Q'\subset \mathbb{R}^n\) (both centred at the origin) touching each other. This is equivalent to the problem whether for two given symmetric matrices \(A,B\) there is an orthogonal matrix \(S\) such that \(\det (A-S^TBS)=0\), and it is shown that this holds if and only if the eigenvalues of \(A\) and \(B\) do not separate each other. Besides the characterization of touching quadrics in terms of their semiaxes, the author studies the singularities of the configuration space of surface-surface contact (this space being defined as the set of isometries transforming a surface into the touching position regarding the other one).