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Lecture 3

SU(2)
January 26, 2011
Lecture 3
A Little Group Theory
A group is a set of elements plus a compostion rule,
such that:
1. Combining two elements under the rule gives
another element of the group.
E E

= E

2. There is an indentity element


E I = I E = E
3. Every element has a unique inverse
E E
1
= E
1
E = I
4. The composition rule is associative
A (B C) = (A B) C
Lecture 3 1
The U(1) Group
The set of all functions U() = e
i
form a group.
E() U(

) = e
i(+

)
= E( +

)
I = E(0)
E
1
() = E()
_
E(
1
)E(
2
)
_
U(
3
) = E(
1
)
_
E(
2
)E(
3
)
_
This is the one dimensional unitary group
U(1)
Lecture 3 2
Lie Groups
If the elements of a group are dierentiable with
respect to their parameters, the group is a Lie group.
U(1) is a Lie group.
dE
d
= iE
For a Lie group, any element can be written in the form
E(
1
,
2
, ,
n
) = exp
_
n

i=1
i
i
F
i
_
The quantities F
i
are the generators of the group.
The quatities
i
are the parameters of the group.
They are a set of i real numbers that are needed to
specify a particular element of the group.
Note that the number of generators and parameters are
the same. There is one generator for each parameter.
Lecture 3 3
U(1)
The group U(1) is the set of all one dimensional,
complex unitary matrices.
The group has one generator F = 1, and one
parameter, .
It simply produces a complex phase change.
E() = e
iF
= e
i
Since the generator F, commutes with itself, the
group elements also commute.
E(
1
)E(
2
) = e
i
1
e
i
2
= e
i
2
e
i
1
= E(
2
)E(
1
)
Such groups are called Abelian groups.
Lecture 3 4
U(2)
The group U(2) is the set of all two dimensional,
complex unitary matrices.
An complex n n matrix has 2n
2
real parameters.
The unitary condition constraint removes n
2
of these.
The group U(2) then has four generators and four
parameters.
E(
0
,
1
,
2
,
3
) = e
i
j
F
j
where j = 0, 1, 2, 3
The generators are: F
i
=
i
/2
F
0
=
1
2
_
1 0
0 1
_
F
1
=
1
2
_
0 1
1 0
_
F
2
=
1
2
_
0 i
i 0
_
F
3
=
1
2
_
1 0
0 1
_
Lecture 3 5
SU(2)
The operators represented by the elements of U(2)
act on two dimensional complex vectors.
The operations generated by F
0
=
0
/2 simply change
the complex phase of both components of the vector
by the same amount. In general we are not so
interested in these operations.
The group SU(2) is the set of all two dimensional,
complex unitary matrices with unit determinant.
The unit determinant constraint removes one more
parameter. The group SU(2) then has three
generators and three parameters.
E(
1
,
2
,
3
) = e
i
j
F
j
where j = 1, 2, 3
The generators of SU(2) are a set of three linearly
independent, traceless 2 2 Hermitian matrices:
F
1
=
1
2
_
0 1
1 0
_
F
2
=
1
2
_
0 i
i 0
_
F
3
=
1
2
_
1 0
0 1
_
Since the generators do not commute with one another,
this is a non Abelian group.
Lecture 3 6
SO(3)
The group SO(3) is the set of all three dimensional,
real orthogonal matrices with unit determinant.
[Requiring that the determinant equal 1 and not 1,
excludes reections.]
A real n n orthogonal matrix has n(n 1)/2 real
parameters
The group SO(3) then has three parameters.
The group SO(3) represents the set of all possible
rotations of a three dimensional real vector.
For example, in terms of the Euler angles
R(, , ) =
0
@
cos sin 0
sin cos 0
0 0 1
1
A
0
@
cos 0 sin
0 1 0
sin 0 cos
1
A
0
@
cos sin 0
sin cos 0
0 0 1
1
A
Lecture 3 7
SU(2) and SO(3)
Both the groups SU(2) and SO(3) have three real
parameters
For example the SU(2) elements can be parametrized
by:
_
a b
b

_
|a|
2
+|b|
2
= 1
_
_
cos e
i
sine
i
sine
i
cos e
i
_
_
In fact, there is a one-to-one correspondence between
SU(2) and SO(3) such that SU(2) represents the set
of all possible rotations of two dimensional complex
vectors (spinors) in a real three dimensional space.
Well not quite. There are actually two SU(2) rotations
for every SO(3) rotation. Thats because, for SU(2),
the rotation with
i
+2 is not the same as the rotation
with
i
. There is a sign dierence. For SU(2), the
range of
i
is: 0
i
4. The set with 0
i
2
corresponds to the complete set of SO(3) rotations.
Lecture 3 8
The Group SU(2)
As we have seen, for the case of j = 1/2, rotations
are represented by the matrices of the form
e
i

/2
= cos(/2)I i(

) sin(/2)
These matrices are 22 complex unitary matrices with
unit determinant. The determinant is unity because
det(e
i

/2
) = e
Tr(i

/2)
= e
0
= 1
The set of all of these matrices forms the group SU(2)
under the operation of matrix multiplication.
These elements are described by a set of three real
parameter (
x
,
y
,
z
)


=
_

x
i

x
+i

z
_
This set of matrices are then elements of a three
dimension real vector space that can be identied as
the space of physics vectors and the three generators
of rotations,
1
,
2
,
3
can be identied with the three
components of a physical vector
S
x
=
h
2

1
S
y
=
h
2

2
S
z
=
h
2

3
Lecture 3 9
SU(2) and Rotations
Any normalized element of a complex two dimensional
vector space
_

_
is also described by three real
parameters, the real and imaginary parts of and
with the constraint ||
2
+||
2
= 1
Any normalized element of the two dimensional vector
space can be obtained by a rotation of the state
_
1
0
_
e
i

/2
= cos(/2)

1 0
0 1

i sin(/2)

x
i

x
+ i

z
!
=
_
_
cos

2
i

z
sin

2
(

y
i

x
) sin

2
(

y
i

x
) sin

2
cos

2
+i

z
sin

2
_
_
e
i

/2
_
1
0
_
=
_
_
cos

2
i

z
sin

2
(

y
i

x
) sin

2
_
_
=
_

_
Conversely, for every state
_

_
there is some direction
n such that:

S n
_

_
=
h
2
_

_
Lecture 3 10
A Check on Consistency
Under a /2 rotation about the x-axis, the
expectation valuer of

S
y
for the rotated system should
equal the expectation value of

S
z
for the non-rotated
system.

S
y
|

= |

S
z
|
Lets check it.
|

S
z
| = |e
i
x
/4
e
i
x
/4

S
z
e
i
x
/4
e
i
x
/4
|
=

|e
i
x
/4

S
z
e
i
x
/4
|

Now, does
e
i
x
/4

S
z
e
i
x
/4
=

S
y
Lecture 3 11
Generalization of the Anticommutation
Relations

j
=
j

i
for i = j

i

n
j
= (1)
n

n
j

i
= (
j
)
n

i
Then for any analytic function of
j
, i.e. and function
that can be expanded as a power series, we have

i
f(
j
) = f(
j
)
i
Using this result we have
e
i
x
/4

S
z
e
i
x
/4
=
h
2
e
i
x
/4

z
e
i
x
/4
=
h
2
e
i
x
/4
e
i
x
/4

z
=
h
2
e
i
x
/2

z
=
h
2
(cos

2
+i
x
sin

2
)
z
=
h
2
i
x

z
=
h
2

y
=

S
y
It checks.
Lecture 3 12
3-Dimensional Representation of SU(2)
The structure of a group is dened by the algebra of
its generators.For SU(2) this is:
[F
i
, F
j
] = i
ijk
F
k
_

i
2
,

j
2
_
= i
ijk

k
2
We can nd a set of three 3 3 complex, traceless,
Hermitian matrices that satisfy this same algebra.
F
1
=
1

2
0
@
0 1 0
1 0 1
0 1 0
1
A
F
2
=
i

2
0
@
0 1 0
1 0 1
0 1 0
1
A
F
3
=
0
@
1 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 1
1
A
These generate the three dimensional representation
of SU(2).
Note that they do not represent all possible rotations of
a three dimensional, normalized complex vector. That
would require at least ve parameter. For example in
the homework you show that you cannot rotate the
state |jm = |1, 1 into |1, 0
Lecture 3 13
Isospin
We are used to SU(2) in spin space
Transformations are physical rotations in 3-
dimensional space
Generators are angular momentum operators
Now we want to consider SU(2) in a new isospin
space.
Complete analogy with SU(2) in spin space.
But,
transformations are not physics
rotations but rather rotations in the
abstract isospin space.
= e
ikx

| {z }
spin

c
u
c
d

| {z }
isospin
Lecture 3 14
SU(3)
The group SU(3) is the set of all three dimensional,
complex unitary matrices with unit determinant.
This set has 2(3)
2
(3)
2
1 = 8 parameters and
generators.
E(
1
,
2
, ,
8
) = e
i
j
F
j
where j = 1, 2, , 8
The generators of SU(3) are a set of eight linearly
independent, traceless 3 3 Hermitian matrices:
Since there are eight generators, the e SU(3) elements
represent rotations of complex three component vectors
in an eight dimensional space.
Lecture 3 15
SU(3) Generators

1
=
0
@
0 1 0
1 0 0
0 0 0
1
A

2
=
0
@
0 i 0
i 0 0
0 0 0
1
A

3
=
0
@
1 0 0
0 1 0
0 0 0
1
A

4
=
0
@
0 0 1
0 0 0
1 0 0
1
A

5
=
0
@
0 0 i
0 0 0
i 0 0
1
A

6
=
0
@
0 0 0
0 0 1
0 1 0
1
A

7
=
0
@
0 0 0
0 0 i
0 i 0
1
A

8
=
1

3
0
@
1 0 0
0 1 0
0 0 2
1
A
The structure of SU(3) is:
[
a
,
b
] = 2if
abc

c
f
123
= 1 f
458
= f
678
=

3
2
f
147
= f
516
= f
246
= f
257
= f
345
= f
637
=
1
2
f
abc
is totally antisymmetric
Lecture 3 16

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