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

The Hermitian conjugate of a real matrix is its transpose, soTherefore $\boxed{M\text{ is anti-Hermitian for all }\theta ,\varphi .}$ It is also a real skew-symmetric matrix. It is Hermitian as well only in the exceptional case $M=0$, precisely when $R_1$ is symmetric. This includes the identity and half-turn cases from part (d), so the zero-matrix overlap should not be excluded.