Orthogonal and Skew-Symmetric Operators in Real Hilbert Space

In the theory of traces on operator ideals, it is desirable to treat not only the complex case. Several proofs become much easier when the underlying operators are represented by real matrices. Motivated by this observation, we prove two theorems which, to the best of our knowledge, are not available in the real setting: (1) every operator is a finite linear combination of orthogonal operators, and (2) every skew-symmetric compact operator S is a commutator [A, T], where certain properties of S are inherited to T. In our opinion, theses results are interesting for their own sake. They will also be used in future studies of trace theory by the second-named author.