Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2014/iii/paper-61/2/i/solution

Assume is normalized and the Hilbert space has dimension . The rank-one orthogonal projection satisfies and .
For , has eigenvalue zero on the orthogonal complement of , so it cannot be a unitary operator. The complementary orthogonal projection kills and is not unitary in any positive dimension. In contrast, the Householder reflection
is Hermitian and obeys . Its eigenvalues are along and on the orthogonal complement.
For , only is unitary. In the exceptional one-dimensional case, is also unitary; its complement remains zero.

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