On the existence of an invariant non-degenerate bilinear form under a linear map (Q609484)

Let \(\mathbb V\) be a vector space over a field \(\mathbb F\). Assume that the characteristic of \(\mathbb F\) is large, i.e. \(\text{char}(\mathbb F) > \dim \mathbb V\). Let \(T : \mathbb V \to \mathbb V\) be an invertible linear map. The authors answer the following question in this paper. When does \(\mathbb V\) admit a \(T\)-invariant non-degenerate symmetric (resp. skew-symmetric) bilinear form? They also answer the infinitesimal version of this question. Following \textit{W. Feit} and \textit{G. J. Zuckerman}, [Contemp. Math. 13, 239--253 (1982; Zbl 0511.20035)], an element \(g\) in a group \(G\) is called real if it is conjugate in \(G\) to its own inverse. So it is important to characterize real elements in \(\mathbb GL(V, \mathbb F)\). As a consequence of the answers to the above question, the authors offer a characterization of the real elements in \(\mathbb GL(\mathbb V, \mathbb F)\). Suppose \(\mathbb V\) is equipped with a non-degenerate symmetric (resp. skew-symmetric) bilinear form \(B\). Let \(S\) be an element in the isometry group \(I(\mathbb V, B)\). A non-degenerate \(S\)-invariant subspace \(\mathbb W\) of \((\mathbb V, B)\) is called orthogonally indecomposable with respect to \(S\) if it is not an orthogonal sum of proper \(S\)-invariant subspaces. The authors classify the orthogonally indecomposable subspaces. This problem is non-trivial for the unipotent elements in \(I(\mathbb V, B)\). The level of a unipotent \(T\) is the least integer \(k\) such that \((T-I)^k=0\). They also classify the levels of unipotents in \(I(\mathbb V, B)\).