Graded symmetry groups: plane and simple (Q6039684)

Pin groups were introduced by \textit{M. F. Atiyah}, \textit{R. Bott} and \textit{A. Shapiro} in [Topology 3, Suppl. 1, 3--38 (1964; Zbl 0146.19001)] in order to describe the symmetries that are the result of combining a finite number of discrete reflections in (hyper)planes. The paper under review is dedicated to generalizing a conjecture of \textit{M. Riesz} [Fundamental Theories of Physics. 54. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. (1993; Zbl 0823.15028)] stating that a bivector of an \(n\)-dimensional geometric algebra \(\mathbb{R}_{pq}\) can always be decomposed into at most \(\lfloor \frac{n}{2} \rfloor\) simple commuting orthogonal bivectors, where a simple bivector is the outer product of two vectors. The authors extend this conjecture to the wider class of algebras \(\mathbb{R}_{pqr}\), which includes \(r\) null basis vectors, and consider the group of all reflections therein, \(\mathrm{Pin}(p,q,r)\). The main result is the following invariant decomposition (Theorem 1): A product \(U = u_{1}u_{2} \ldots u_{k}\) of \(k\) reflections \(u_{i}\) can be decomposed into exactly \(\lceil \frac{k}{2} \rceil\) simple commuting factors. These are \(\lfloor \frac{k}{2} \rfloor\) products of two reflections, and, for odd \(k\), one extra reflection.