Generators for classical groups of modules over local rings (Q752855)

The authors look at factorizations of isometries on a free module M over a commutative local ring R. The module M is endowed with a sesquilinear or a quadratic form. They consider mappings whose paths (residual spaces) are subspaces of M. The aim is to determine the minimal number of factors in any factorization of the mappings into simple mappings. The result depends on the set of generators. Three theorems are proved; they concern the radical length, the liberal length, and the conservative length. The research may be considered as a generalization of Ellers' paper [\textit{E. W. Ellers}, \textit{H. Ishibashi}, Linear Algebra Appl. 85, 17-27 (1987; Zbl 0609.15008)].