The structure of norm Clifford algebras

Abstract

Abstract Orthomodular Hilbertian spaces are infinite-dimensional inner product spaces (E, 〈·, ·〉) with the rare property that to every orthogonally closed subspace U ⊆ E there is an orthogonal projection from E onto U. These spaces, discovered about 30 years ago, are constructed over certain non-Archimedeanly valued, complete fields and are endowed with a non-Archimedean norm derived from the inner product. In a previous work [KELLER, H. A.—OCHSENIUS, H.: On the Clifford algebra of orthomodular spaces over Krull valued fields. In: Contemp. Math. 508, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 2010, pp. 73–87] we described the construction of a new object, called the norm Clifford algebra C̃(E) associated to E. It can be considered a counterpart of the well-established Clifford algebra of a finite dimensional quadratic space. In contrast to the classical case, C̃(E) allows to represent infinite products of reflections by inner automorphisms. It is a significant step towards a better understanding of the group of isometries, which in infinite dimension is complex and hard to grasp. In the present paper we are concerned with the inner structure of these new algebras. We first give a canonical representation of the elements, and we prove that C̃ is always central. Then we focus on an outstanding special case in which C̃ is shown to be a division ring. Moreover, in that special case we completely describe the ideals of the corresponding valuation ring $$\mathcal{A}$$. It turns out, rather unexpectedly, that every left-ideal and every right-ideal of $$\mathcal{A}$$ is in fact bilateral.