Factoring isometries of quadratic spaces into reflections (Q2142474)

Given a non-degenerate quadratic space \((V,Q)\) over a field with more than \(2\) elements, it is easy to show that each isometry is a product of at the most \(\dim(V)\) reflections. It is of interest to determine the minimal number of reflections needed for any specific isometry (this length will depend on the isometry). Other natural questions are the determination of the set of all minimal length factorizations into reflections of a given isometry. Some of these questions have been answered for anisotropic spaces. In the paper under review, the authors provide analogous answers for general quadratic spaces using old work of G E Wall on the orthogonal groups. In 1959, G E Wall had parametrized orthogonal groups in terms of the so-called ``moved space'' (a.k.a. residual space) and the Wall form. In the second part of their paper, the authors consider quadratic spaces \((V,Q)\) over ordered fields. Here, we have a notion of positive reflections; these are simply reflections with respect to vectors \(v\) which \(Q(v)>0\). Considering those ordered fields \(F\) for which the squares are dense in the set of positive elements (these include subfields of \(\mathbb{R}\) as well as fields where every positive element is itself a square), they answer questions concerning reflection length of isometries which are products of positive reflections. In particular, they show that isometries which are products of positive reflections are precisely those which have positive spinor norm. As an application of this study, they obtain a description of minimal length factorizations of isometries of hyperbolic spaces \(\mathbb{H}^n\) into reflections.