Thursday, September 23
Milner 216, 1:00 PM
Title: On effective Witt decomposition and Cartan-Dieudonné theorem
Abstract: A classical theorem of Witt states that a bilinear space can be decomposed into an orthogonal sum of hyperbolic planes, singular, and anisotropic components. I will discuss the existence of such a decomposition of bounded height for a symmetric bilinear space over a number field, where all bounds on height are explicit. I will also talk about an effective version of Cartan-Dieudonné theorem on representation of an isometry of a regular symmetrice bilinear space as a product of reflections. Finally, if time permits, I will show a special version of Siegel's Lemma for a bilinear space, which provides a small-height orthogonal decomposition into one-dimensional subspaces.