Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2002/iii/paper-18/4/d/solution

Choose positive roots
The corresponding simple roots are and . The vector has weight . Adding any positive root to this weight produces a weight absent from part (a), so every positive root vector annihilates it. It is consequently a highest-weight vector with highest weight .
A representation of a compact Lie group is completely reducible: Haar averaging makes an inner product invariant, and orthogonal complements of invariant subspaces remain invariant. Therefore the exterior square contains an irreducible summand of this highest weight. This can also be seen by projecting the displayed highest-weight vector into irreducible summands; a nonzero projection remains annihilated by all positive root vectors and has the same weight. Its multiplicity is one because the weight space at is one-dimensional.
Use the Weyl dimension formula, expressly allowed in this part:
Here is the irreducible highest-weight representation, is the chosen positive root system, is half its sum, and the pairing is the invariant Euclidean inner product on the real weight plane, with orthonormal. Using coroots instead gives the same ratio because the length factor cancels for each root. In this convention,
The four factors, in the listed positive-root order, are respectively
Their product is . Since , this irreducible summand occupies the entire exterior square. Hence
The proof uses the dimension formula only where it is allowed, not in the symmetric-power argument of Question 2. Its B2 adjoint representation weight diagram is exactly the eight roots and the double zero weight obtained above.

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