Orthomatrices and octonions (Q760491)

A multiplication rule of octonions with complex units \(e_1,e_2,\ldots,e_7\) is rather complicated. The purpose of this paper is to represent the octonions by \(8\times 8\) matrices called orthomatrices, where a multiplication rule of two orthomatrices is simpler than ordinary matrix one. The authors associate with an octonion \(x=\sum x_ie_i\), an \(8\times 8\) matrix \(X\), where the first (zeroth) row consists of the coefficients \(a_0,a_1,\ldots,a_7\) and other rows are suitably determined by the zeroth row such that all rows are mutually orthogonal. An addition is defined usually, the product \(X\circ Y\) defined as the zeroth row of \(X\circ Y\) is obtained by multiplying the zeroth row of \(X\) by all columns of \(Y\). Then, the orthomatrices represent octonions. In the appendix, it is shown that only \(2^ n\times 2^ n\) orthomatrices \((n=1,2,3)\) can exist, which corresponds to the Hurwitz theorem.