Unitary group is conjugacy-closed in general linear group

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This article gives the statement, and proof, of a particular subgroup in a group being conjugacy-closed: in other words, any two elements of the subgroup that are conjugate in the whole group, are also conjugate in the subgroup
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Statement

Let GL(n,C) denote the general linear group: the group of invertible n×n complex matrices. Let U(n,C) denote the unitary group: the subgroup comprising matrices A such that AA* is the identity matrix. Then, U(n,C) is conjugacy-closed in GL(n,C): any two unitary matrices that are conjugate over GL(n,C), are conjugate in U(n,C).

Proof

The proof uses the following facts:

  • By the spectral theorem for unitary matrices, any unitary matrix is conjugate, in the unitary group, to a diagonal unitary matrix.
  • Also, clearly any two diagonal unitary matrices that are conjugate in the general linear group, are conjugate by a permutation matrix, hence they are conjugate in the unitary group.

Thus, we have established a conjugate-dense subgroup of U(n,C) (namely the diagonal unitary matrices) such that any two elements of the subgroup are conjugate in GL(n,C) iff they are conjugate in U(n,C). This shows that U(n,C) is conjugacy-closed in <math>GL(n,\mathbb{C}).