Invariant rings of orthogonal groups over the field of two elements

Abstract

We determine the rings of invariants in the symmetric algebra on the dual of a vector space V over the field of two elements, for the group G of orthogonal transformations preserving a non-singular quadratic form on V. The invariant ring is shown to have a presentation in which the difference between the number of generators and the number of relations is equal to the minimum possibility, namely the dimension of V, and it is shown to be a complete intersection. In particular, the rings of invariants computed here are all Gorenstein and hence Cohen-Macaulay.