Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Lie groups and Lie algebras are used in physics mostly in terms of what are called rep-
resentations. Very often they are even defined in terms of their concrete representations.
We took a more abstract approach by defining a Lie group as a smooth manifold with a
compatible group structure, and its associated Lie algebra as the space of left-invariant
vector fields, which we then showed to be isomorphic to the tangent space at the identity.
where the right hand side is the natural Lie bracket on End(V ).
Definition. Let : L
End(V ) be a representation of L.
Example 17.1. Consider the Lie algebra sl(2, C). We constructed a basis {X1 , X2 , X3 }
satisfying the relations
[X1 , X2 ] = 2X2 ,
[X1 , X3 ] = 2X3 ,
[X2 , X3 ] = X1 .
End(C2 ) be the linear map defined by
Let : sl(2, C)
1 0 01 00
(X1 ) := , (X2 ) := , (X3 ) :=
0 1 00 10
(recall that a linear map is completely determined by its action on a basis, by linear con-
tinuation). To check that is a representation of sl(2, C), we calculate
1 0 01 01 1 0
[(X1 ), (X2 )] =
0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1
02
=
00
= (2X2 )
= ([X1 , X2 ]).
1
Similarly, we find
By linear continuation, ([x, y]) = [(x), (y)] for any x, y sl(2, C) and hence, is a
2-dimensional representation of sl(2, C) with representation space C2 . Note that we have
a b 2
im (sl(2, C)) = End(C ) a + d = 0
c d
= { End(C2 ) | tr = 0}.
This is how sl(2, C) is often defined in physics courses, i.e. as the algebra of 2 2 complex
traceless matrices.
Two representations of a Lie algebra can be related in the following sense.
x L : f 1 (x) = 2 (x) f.
f
V1 V2
1 (x) 2 (x)
f
V1 V2
V2 is a linear isomorphism, then f 1 : V2
If in addition f : V1 V1 is automatically
a homomorphism of representations, since
[Ji , Jj ] = C kij Jk ,
2
where the structure constants C kij are defined by first pulling the index k down using the
Killing form ab = C man C nbm to obtain Ckij := km C mij , and then setting
1 if (i j k) is an even permutation of (1 2 3)
Ckij := ijk := 1 if (i j k) is an odd permutation of (1 2 3)
0 otherwise.
[J1 , J2 ] = J3 ,
[J2 , J3 ] = J1 ,
[J3 , J1 ] = J2 .
Define a linear map End(R3 ) by
vec : so(3, R)
0 0 0 0 01 0 1 0
vec (J1 ) := 0 0 1 , vec (J2 ) := 0 0 0 , vec (J3 ) := 1 0 0 .
0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0
You can easily check that this is a representation of so(3, R). However, as you may be aware
from quantum mechanics, there is another representation of so(3, R), namely
End(C2 ),
spin : so(3, R)
You can again check that this is a representation of so(3, R). Since
dim R3 = 3 6= 4 = dim C2 ,
3
Definition. The adjoint representation of L is
adj : L
End(L)
x 7 adj (x) := ad(x).
These are indeed representations since we have already shown that ad is a Lie algebra
homomorphism, while for the trivial representations we have
Example 17.3. All representations considered so far are faithful, except for the trivial rep-
resentations whenever the Lie algebra L is not itself trivial. Consider, for instance, the
adjoint representation. We have
End(R3 C2 ) given
Example 17.4. The direct sum representation vec spin : so(3, R)
in block-matrix form by
!
vec (x) 0
(vec spin )(x) =
0 spin (x)
4
Definition. A representation : L
End(V ) is called reducible if there exists a non-trivial
vector subspace U V which is invariant under the action of , i.e.
x L : u U : (x)u U.
In other words, restricts to a representation |U : L
End(U ).
Of course, the Killing form we have considered so far is just ad . Similarly to ad , every
is symmetric and associative with respect to the Lie bracket of L.
Proposition 17.7. Let : L End(V ) be a faithful representation of a complex semi-
simple Lie algebra L. Then, is non-degenerate.
L via
Hence, induces an isomorphism L
L 3 x 7 (x, ) L .
e dim L } of L
e 1, . . . , X
Recall that if {X1 , . . . , Xdim L } is a basis of L, then the dual basis {X
is defined by
Xe i (Xj ) = ji .
5
By using the isomorphism induced by , we can find some 1 , . . . , dim L L such that we
e i or, equivalently,
have (i , ) = X
e i (x).
x L : (x, i ) = X
We thus have (
1 if i 6= j
(Xi , j ) = ij :=
0 otherwise.
Therefore
dim
XL
1 i dim L : Xi , [Xj , k ] C kmj m = 0
m=1
We are now ready to define the Casimir operator and prove the subsequent theorem.
Definition. Let : L End(V ) be a faithful representation of a complex (compact) Lie
algebra L and let {X1 , . . . , Xdim L } be a basis of L. The Casimir operator associated to the
representation is the endomorphism : V V
dim
XL
:= (Xi ) (i ).
i=1
Theorem 17.9. Let the Casimir operator of a representation : L
End(V ). Then
x L : [ , (x)] = 0,
6
Proof. Note that the bracket above is that on End(V ). Let x = xk Xk L. Then
dim
XL
k
[ , (x)] = (Xi ) (i ), (x Xk )
i=1
dim
XL
= xk [(Xi ) (i ), (Xk )].
i,k=1
Observe that if the Lie bracket as the commutator with respect to an associative product,
as is the case for End(V ), we have
after swapping the dummy summation indices m and i in the second term.
Lemma 17.10 (Schur). If : L End(V ) is irreducible, then any operator S which
commutes with every endomorphism in im (L) has the form
S = c idV
It follows immediately that = c idV for some c but, in fact, we can say more.
Proposition 17.11. The Casimir operator of : L
End(V ) is = c idV , where
dim L
c = .
dim V
7
Proof. We have
tr( ) = tr(c idV ) = c dim V
and
dim
XL
tr( ) = tr (Xi ) (i )
i=1
dim
XL
= tr((Xi ) (i ))
i=1
dim
XL
= (Xi , i )
i=1
dim
XL
= ii
i=1
= dim L,
Example 17.12. Consider the Lie algebra so(3, R) with basis {J1 , J2 , J3 } satisfying
[Ji , Jj ] = ijk Jk ,
where we assume the summation convention on the lower index k. Recall that the repre-
End(R3 ) is defined by
sentation vec : so(3, R)
00 0 0 01 0 1 0
vec (J1 ) := 0 0 1 , vec (J2 ) := 0 0 0 , vec (J3 ) := 1 0 0 .
01 0 1 0 0 0 0 0
8
Thus, vec (Ji , j ) = ij requires that we define i := 12 Ji . Then, we have
3
X
vec := vec (Ji ) vec (i )
i=1
X3
= vec (Ji ) vec ( 12 Ji )
i=1
3
1X
= (vec (Ji ))2
2
i=1
2 2 2
00 0 0 01 0 1 0
1
= 0 0 1 + 0 0 0 + 1 0 0
2
01 0 1 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0
1
= 0 1 0 + 0 0 0 + 0 1 0
2
0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0
100
= 0 1 0 .
001
Hence vec = cvec idR3 with cvec = 1, which agrees with our previous theorem since
dim so(3, R) 3
3
= = 1.
dim R 3
Example 17.13. Let us consider the Lie algebra so(3, R) again, but this time with represen-
tation spin . Recall that this is given by
i i i
spin (J1 ) := 1 , spin (J2 ) := 2 , spin (J3 ) := 3 ,
2 2 2
where 1 , 2 , 3 are the Pauli matrices. Recalling that 12 = 22 = 32 = idC2 , we calculate
Note that tr(idC2 ) = 4, since tr(idV ) = dim V and here C2 is considered as a 4-dimensional
vector space over R. Proceeding similarly, we find that the components of spin are
1 0 0
[(spin )ij ] = 0 1 0 .
0 0 1
9
Hence, we define i := Ji . Then, we have
3
X
spin := spin (Ji ) spin (i )
i=1
X3
= spin (Ji ) spin (Ji )
i=1
3
X
= (spin (Ji ))2
i=1
3
i 2 X
= i2
2
i=1
3
1X
= idC2
4
i=1
3
= id 2 ,
4 C
in accordance with the fact that
dim so(3, R) 3
= .
dim C2 4
17.3 Representations of Lie groups
We now turn to representations of Lie groups. Given a vector space V , recall that the
subset of End(V ) consisting of the invertible endomorphisms and denoted
forms a group under composition, called the automorphism group (or general linear group)
of V . Moreover, if V is a finite-dimensional K-vector space, then V
=vec K dim V and hence
the group GL(V ) can be given the structure of a Lie group via
GL(V )
=Lie grp GL(K dim V ).
R : G GL(V )
10
Example 17.14. Consider the Lie group SO(2, R). As a smooth manifold, SO(2, R) is iso-
morphic to the circle S 1 . Let U = S 1 \ {p0 }, where p is any point of S 1 , so that we can
define a chart : U [0, 2) R on S 1 by mapping each point in U to an angle in
[0, 2).
p
U
(p)
p0
The operation
p1 p2 := ((p1 ) + (p2 )) mod 2
endows S 1 =diff SO(2, R) with the structure of a Lie group. Then, a representation of
SO(2, R) is given by
R : SO(2, R) GL(R2 )
cos (p) sin (p)
p 7 .
sin (p) cos (p)
Example 17.15. Let G be a Lie group (we suppress the in this example). For each g G,
define the Adjoint map
Adg : G G
h 7 ghg 1 .
Note the capital A to distinguish this from the adjoint map on Lie algebras. Since Adg is a
composition of the Lie group multiplication and inverse map, it is a smooth map. Moreover,
we have
Adg (e) = geg 1 = gg 1 = e.
Hence, the push-forward of Adg at the identity is the map
(Adg )e : Te G
TAdg (e) G = Te G.
Thus, we have Adg End(Te G). In fact, you can check that
11
We can therefore construct a map
Ad : G GL(Te G)
g 7 Adg
the map (R )e is a representation of the Lie algebra of G on the vector space GL(V ). In
fact, in the previous example we have
(Ad )e = ad,
12