Paper 4, Section II, G

Linear Algebra
Part IB, 2009

What does it mean to say two real symmetric bilinear forms AA and BB on a vector space VV are congruent ?

State and prove Sylvester's law of inertia, and deduce that the rank and signature determine the congruence class of a real symmetric bilinear form. [You may use without proof a result on diagonalisability of real symmetric matrices, provided it is clearly stated.]

How many congruence classes of symmetric bilinear forms on a real nn-dimensional vector space are there? Such a form ψ\psi defines a family of subsets {xRnψ(x,x)=t}\left\{x \in \mathbb{R}^{n} \mid \psi(x, x)=t\right\}, for tRt \in \mathbb{R}. For how many of the congruence classes are these associated subsets all bounded subsets of Rn\mathbb{R}^{n} ? Is the quadric surface

{3x2+6y2+5z2+4xy+2xz+8yz=1}\left\{3 x^{2}+6 y^{2}+5 z^{2}+4 x y+2 x z+8 y z=1\right\}

a bounded or unbounded subset of R3\mathbb{R}^{3} ? Justify your answers.