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

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 . Consequently
Equivalently, 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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