Every is invertible because both inversion and the conjugate transpose preserve invertibility. For , the group homomorphism property of and reversal of multiplication under the adjoint giveAlso . Hence is a group representation. It is the inverse-adjoint representation of ; the inverse and adjoint each reverse product order, so together they preserve it.
Use the standard Hermitian inner product . Since is invariant under every , it is in particular invariant underLet and . Thenbecause and is orthogonal to . Thus is orthogonal to every , provingTherefore is an invariant subspace for . If is irreducible, is either or . In finite-dimensional inner product space, , so these alternatives force or . HenceNo unitarity of was assumed; the inverse-adjoint representation is exactly what makes this orthogonal complement argument work.