Simultaneous orthogonalization of inner products in infinite-dimensional vector spaces

Abstract

For an arbitrary field $\mathbb{K}$ and a family of inner products in a $\mathbb{K}$-vector space $V$ of arbitrary dimension, we study necessary and sufficient conditions in order to have an orthogonal basis relative to all the inner products. If the family contains a nondegenerate element plus a compatibility condition, then under mild hypotheses the simultaneous orthogonalization can be achieved. So we investigate several constructions whose purpose is to add a nondegenerate element to a degenerate family and we study under what conditions the enlarged family is nondegenerate.