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Past exam of the Lie algebras and representation theory of symmetric groups course of the University of Oxford 2009 B 6 Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-31
Use the standard invariant tabloid bilinear form, with the tabloid basis orthonormal. Each permutation acts by an orthogonal matrix, so . Inversion permutes and preserves its signs. ThereforeThe James submodule theorem states that for any submodule , either or . Use the allowed fact . The coefficient of in is one, so the displayed adjoint identity gives . If is not orthogonal to , some and some tableau have . Hence , and its permutation translates span . This proves the theorem.
Let . Every proper submodule of lies in by the theorem. If the restricted form is nonzero, is proper, hence is the unique maximal submodule andIn the stronger nondegenerate case specified in the question, , so itself is simple. The nonzero-form version also covers the possibly degenerate case needed in the final calculation.
For shape , identify with with basis . Its Specht module is the augmentation subspace , spanned freely by , . Its Gram matrix is , with diagonal entries two and off-diagonal entries one. Equivalently, in is the span of . This vector belongs to exactly when . Thus the restricted radical has dimension one if and zero otherwise, givingFor this quotient is nonzero and simple by the theorem. In the small exceptional case , the canonical radical quotient is zero, as the same dimension formula states; it is then not a nonzero simple module. This qualification distinguishes the numerical formula from the nonzero-form hypothesis.
Past exam of the Lie algebras and representation theory of symmetric groups course of the University of Oxford 2009 A 2 Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-31
The Killing form is . Write , , . Since , cyclicity of trace givesIf , and , invariance gives , because . Thus is an ideal. For , the restrictions of their adjoint maps to are the adjoint maps of , and their induced maps on vanish. Block traces therefore give .
If is an Abelian ideal, maps into and vanishes on for . In a basis starting with it has zero diagonal blocks, hence trace zero. Therefore every Abelian ideal lies in .
Cartan criterion for semisimplicity says that a finite-dimensional complex Lie algebra is semisimple exactly when its Killing form is nondegenerate. To see why nondegeneracy implies semisimplicity, any nonzero solvable ideal has a last nonzero derived term which is an Abelian ideal of . The previous paragraph would put it in the radical of the Killing form, a contradiction.
If is a semisimple ideal of , the restriction is nondegenerate. Put . This is an ideal of by the argument above, and nondegeneracy on gives and . One way to check the latter is to restrict the pairing map : its restriction to is an isomorphism, so every vector of can be adjusted by an element of to lie in its kernel . Since both are ideals, . HenceApply this to the supplied extension by the derivation. If , it is . Otherwise and are one-dimensional, and projection is an isomorphism. Choose its vector with -component , writing it as for . Because , for every one has . ThusThis also handles the sign in the extension bracket explicitly.
Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project
Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
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Intro to OurBigBook
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This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.Figure 1. Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page. View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivativeVideo 2. OurBigBook Web topics demo. Source. - local editing: you can store all your personal knowledge base content locally in a plaintext markup format that can be edited locally and published either:This way you can be sure that even if OurBigBook.com were to go down one day (which we have no plans to do as it is quite cheap to host!), your content will still be perfectly readable as a static site.
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