Elementary covering numbers in odd-dimensional unitary groups

Raimund Preusser

Let $(K,\Delta )$ be a Hermitian form field and $n\ge 3$. We prove that if $\sigma \in U_{2n+1}(K,\Delta )$ is a unitary matrix of level $(K,\Delta )$, then any short root transvection $T_{ij}(x)$ is a p…