Classification of pairs of rotations in finite-dimensional Euclidean space (Q838985)

The well-known structure theorem for orthogonal operators provides complete information about the behavior of a given orthogonal operator on a finite-dimensional Euclidean space. The main result of this paper is a corresponding picture for pairs of rotations in a finite-dimensional Euclidean space, i.e. a classification of all representations of the real algebra with two generators, given by pairs of rotations. The author's interest in rotational representations originates in the theory of real division algebras. The above classification plays an important role in that of the 8-dimensional absolute valued algebras with a nonzero central idempotent or a one-sided unity.