Matrices of \(\mathrm{SL}(4,\mathbb R)\) that are the product of two skew-symmetric matrices (Q2361050)

Let \(M_{4}(\mathbb{R})\) be the set of all \(4\times 4\) real matrices and denote by \(\mathcal{SS}(4)\) the subset of all matrices in \(M_{4}(\mathbb{R})\) that are the product of two skew-symmetric matrices, i.e. \[ \mathcal{SS}(4):=\{AB:A,B\in M_{4}(\mathbb{R}),A^{T}=-A,B^{T}=-B\}. \] For \(A,B\in M_{4}(\mathbb{R)}\), we say that \(A\) and \(B\) are \(\mathrm{SL}(4,\mathbb{R})\)-similar if there exists \(P\in \mathrm{SL}(4,\mathbb{R})\) such that \(A=P^{-1}BP\). The paper under review makes two main contributions. By investigating the Jordan forms of matrices in \(\mathcal{SS}(4)\), the authors show with the first main theorem that for any \(M\in \mathrm{SL}(4,\mathbb{R})\), \(M\in \mathcal{SS}(4)\) if and only if \(M\) is \(\mathrm{SL}(4,\mathbb{R})\)-similar to a matrix from one of the six classes, called the \(\mathrm{SL}(4,\mathbb{R})\)-Jordan form of \(M\). The authors describe these classes and observe that the six \(\mathrm{SL}(4,\mathbb{R})\)-Jordan forms have simple geometric interpretations in \(\mathbb{R}^{4}\) (or equivalently in \(S^{3}\)). With the second result the authors show that the matrices of \(\mathcal{SS}(4)\) correspond to \(2\)-D rotations in non-null planes of \(\mathbb{R}^{3,3}\) via the classical Plücker correspondence. The authors conclude the paper by discussing the relationship between Lorentz transformations and \(\mathcal{SS}(4)\).