The maximum dimension of a subspace of nilpotent matrices of index 2

A matrix M is nilpotent of index 2 if M2=0. Let V be a space of nilpotent n×n matrices of index 2 over a field k where and suppose that r is the maximum rank of any matrix in V. The object of this paper is to give an elementary proof of the fact that . We show that the inequality is sharp and construct all such subspaces of maximum dimension. We use the result to find the maximum dimension of spaces of anti-commuting matrices and zero subalgebras of special Jordan Algebras.