Test spaces and characterizations of quadratic spaces (Q674989)

For information on test spaces see, e.g., \textit{D. F. Foulis} and \textit{M. K. Bennett} [Found. Phys. 24, No. 10, 1331-1352 (1994)]. The author deals with the test space formed by non-zero vectors of a quadratic or inner product space \(E\) and the collection of maximal orthogonal systems in \(E\). The central result relates the algebraicity property of the test space with a number of properties of \(E\) itself. One of these is orthomodularity of \(E\). (The space \(E\) is said to be orthomodular if the set of its orthogonally closed subspaces coincides with that of splitting subspaces.) Various orthomodularity criteria for quadratic spaces satisfying some additional conditions are given. In particular, such a space is orthomodular iff it is either a real or complex, or quaternionic Hilbert space. This result is similar to a theorem of \textit{M. P. Solèr} [Commun. Algebra 23, 219-243 (1995; Zbl 0827.46019)] and relies on the latter.