Browsing by Author "Farenick, D.R."

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    Unitary groups of nondegenerate Hermitian forms and the homotopy groups of pseudospheres
    (2008) Farenick, D.R.; Ramsey, Christopher
    The Witt Extension Theorem states that the unitary group of a finite-dimensional vector space V equipped with a nondegenerate hermitian form acts transitively on the pseudosphere induced by the form. We provide a new, constructive proof of this result for finite-dimensional vector spaces V over R , C , or H . This constructive proof is then used to prove a similar result for the unitary group of a finitely generated free right module over an abelian AW ∗-algebra. The topology of these unitary groups is examined and as an application we determine the homotopy groups π 1 and π 2 of the induced real, complex, and quaternionic pseudospheres.