Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 ib Paper 2 17G d Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Let , , and . Their traces are real by part c, and . Thus . Expanding the product and using givesThereforeIn particular the trace expression is real and symmetric on . Under the coordinates , , it is . Thus the trace form on scalar-plus-skew-Hermitian two-by-two matrices has rank , inertia , or numerical signature , agreeing with under the real isomorphism.