Orthogonal invariants of skew-symmetric matrices (Q5917736)

If \(M \in \text{Mat} (n)\), the \(n \times n\) real square matrices, then \(M_r (M)\) \(r = 1, 2, \dots, n\) denotes the sum of the squares of the \(r\)-th order minors of \(M\) or the square of the norm of the \(r\)-th compound matrix of \(M\). This paper gives formulas for the sums \(M_r (A)\) for skew-symmetric matrices in terms of elementary symmetric functions of the squares of the eigenvalues of \(A\). An operator \(A^* : \text{Mat} (n) \to \text{Mat} (n)\) is defined by \(A^* (M) = AM - MA\). The restrictions of \(A^*\) to the symmetric and skew-symmetric matrices are denoted by \(A^*_1 \& A_2^*\). Then values of \(M_r (A_1^*) \& M_r (A_2^*)\) are given which involve the discriminant \(D(A)\) of the characteristic polynomial of \(A\). Finally, an example is given for a general \(3 \times 3\) skew-symmetric matrix.