Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-2-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2022/paper-1/6/d/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2022 Paper 1 6 d Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-18
Since both real matrices are antisymmetric, and . Thus . Expand the two unitary identities:Subtracting and adding give . Because has simple eigenvalues, each of its complex eigenspaces is one-dimensional. Commutation makes each one invariant under : if , then . Hence for some scalar . The complete eigenbasis of is therefore a common eigenbasis, which also diagonalizes .
The skew-Hermitian decomposition of a unitary matrix is explicit:If , unitarity gives . ConsequentlyEquivalently, for the paired eigenvalues are . The hypotheses can only occur in even dimension: and is invertible, whereas an odd-dimensional skew-symmetric matrix has zero determinant.
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