Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2021 / Paper 1 / 5 / b

The $z$ direction is fixed, giving the eigenvalue one. The planar block has characteristic polynomialThus the full list of eigenvalues isThe last two are real precisely when $\sin \varphi =0$, so all three are real exactly for $\boxed{\varphi \in \pi \mathbb{Z}}$. At even multiples of $\pi$ the matrix is the identity and every vector is fixed. At odd multiples it is a half-turn: the axial eigenvalue remains $+1$, while the whole perpendicular plane has eigenvalue $-1$.

For other angles, the only real eigenvector direction is the rotation axis; the perpendicular plane is rotated rather than preserving an individual real direction. Its complex eigenvectors can be taken as $(1,-i,0{)}^T$ and $(1,i,0{)}^T$ for $e^{i\varphi }$ and $e^{-i\varphi }$, respectively. These represent the two complex conjugate planar eigenvalues.