Friday, 10 February 2012

Connected components of the orthogonal group O(2n) in characteristic 2.

I am looking for a reference for the following fact:
The orthogonal group O2n over an algebraically closed field of characteristic 2
has exactly two connected components.



To be more precise, let Oq denote the orthogonal group of the quadratic form q(x)=x1x2+x3x4+cdots+x2n1x2n
over an algebraically closed field k.
In characteristic pneq2 the determinant takes two values on Oq, 1 and 1,
and therefore the subgroup SOq:=OqcapSL2n is of index 2 in Oq; it is known that OqcapSL2n is connected.



In characteristic 2 the determinant takes only one value 1 on Oq (because 1=1), and therefore OqcapSL2n=Oq.
Still there is a homomorphism DcolonOqtomathbfZ/2mathbfZ given by a polynomial D called the Dickson invariant,
see J.A.~Dieudonn'e, Pseudo-discriminant and Dickson invariant, Pacific. J. Math. 5 (1955), 907--910.
This homomorphism D indeed takes both values 0 and 1 on Oq, and therefore its kernel ker D
is a closed subgroup of index 2 in Oq. I would like to know that ker D is connected.
In other words, I am looking for a reference to the assertion that the orthogonal group Oq has at most two connected components.
This is proved in Brian Conrad's handout "Properties of orthogonal groups" to his course Math 252 "Algebraic groups",
see http://math.stanford.edu/~conrad/252Page/handouts/O(q).pdf . Is there any other reference for this fact?



I will be grateful to any references, comments, etc.



Mikhail Borovoi

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