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Orthogonal Stability

A character (ordinary or modular) is called orthogonally stable if all non-degenerate quadratic forms fixed by representations with those constituents have the same determinant mod squares. We show that this is the case provided there are no odd-degree orthogonal constituents. We further show that if the reduction mod p of an ordinary character is orthogonally stable, this determinant is the reduction mod p of the ordinary one. In particular, if the characteristic does not divide the group order, we immediately see in which orthogonal group it lies. We sketch methods for computing this determinant, and give some examples.