Theorem. Proper Spin projections and anisotropic compactness [fcap-0047]

Let \(K\) be a local field of characteristic different from two as in Definition [fcap-0044], and let \(Q\) be a nondegenerate quadratic form on a finite-dimensional \(K\)-space \(V\). Use the canonical topologies of Definition [fcap-0044]. A continuous map is called proper here if the inverse image of every compact set is compact. The form \(Q\) is anisotropic if \(Q(v)=0\) implies \(v=0\); otherwise it is isotropic. This includes the zero-dimensional form as anisotropic, as in [lam2005quadratic, I.3, Definition 3.1, p. 9].

The Spin projection \(\rho :\operatorname {Spin}(Q)\to SO(Q)\) is proper, and \[\begin {gathered} \operatorname {Spin}(Q)\text { is compact}\\ \Longleftrightarrow \quad Q\text { is anisotropic}. \end {gathered}\] Anisotropy also makes \(O(Q)\) compact. The proofs below deduce these claims from the closed carriers and open Clifford quotient of Lemma [fcap-0045] and Proposition [fcap-0046], using the scalar-kernel and reverse-norm identities of Proposition [fcap-002D]. Thus compactness depends on the quadratic form, even when the projection has finite kernel.

TauCeti formalizes properness and the compactness criterion in CliffordAlgebra.isProperMap_spinToSpecialOrthogonal and CliffordAlgebra.isCompact_spinGroup_iff. Their hypotheses are a weakly locally compact nontrivially normed field, finite dimension, invertible two and nondegeneracy. The supporting TauCeti.QuadraticMap.isCompact_orthogonalGroup assumes anisotropy and finite dimension over the same kind of field, without a separate nondegeneracy or characteristic condition. These statements use the canonical module and subgroup topologies; on the locally compact Hausdorff targets here, formal properness agrees with the compact-preimage condition used above.