Bireflectionality in special orthogonal groups

Abstract

It is shown that a transformation in the special orthogonal group SO(V) of a nondefective quadratic space over a field K is bireflectional (product of 2 involutions) if and only if it is reversible (conjugate to its inverse). Furthermore, all elements of SO(V) are bireflectional if and only if dim V is odd or divisible by 4, or V is a hyperbolic plane over GF(2) or GF(3).