Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2006/iii/paper-1/1/b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 iii Paper 1 1 b Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Let be the dual basis of , and use . The elementary tensors have weight . Grouping them gives every weight space explicitly:The counts are , so this table exhausts the tensor product. The diagrams below use equilateral coordinates , , ; numbers at points are weight multiplicities.
To decompose the module, first split the first two factors into their symmetric and alternating parts. Put , including . The equivariant contractionis onto, since . Its kernel has dimension fifteen and contains the highest-weight vector of weight .
Here is an explicit weight basis of the trace-free symmetric-square dual tensor module, and thus the requested fifteen-vector basis:Every displayed vector contracts to zero. The first two families occupy distinct one-dimensional weights; at each weight the two vectors in the last family are independent because their respective terms are distinct. Thus all fifteen are independent and span .
For completeness, is irreducible, not just an invariant kernel of the right dimension. On elementary tensors the raising action isAt the six weights , both and kill the vector only for . At each weight , at least one of those operators is nonzero. At weight , write a vector as . The two raising equations are and , forcing zero. On the two-dimensional weight- space is injective, and on the weight- space is injective, as substitution in the same action formula shows. Therefore the common raising kernel in is the single line . By Weyl complete reducibility theorem, every irreducible summand supplies a highest-weight line, so has only one summand and is irreducible.
The symmetric-factor contraction splits off a defining copy ; explicitly is equivariant and its contraction is . For the alternating factor, the invariant volume form identifies , sending to , to and to . ThereforeThe symmetric dual module is irreducible of dimension six and highest weight ; its symmetric-monomial basis has weights and , all of multiplicity one. In the original tensor product its highest-weight vector isThe raising action above annihilates it, and its weight is .
Altogether the Triple tensor decomposition for the defining sl3 representation isThe fifteen-dimensional module has multiplicity one at each and , and multiplicity two at each . The six-dimensional module has multiplicity one at and . Each defining module has the three weights , once each. These add to the original table of multiplicities.
Weight diagrams of the 27-dimensional sl3 tensor product and its irreducible summands of dimensions fifteen, six, three and three
. Details. The two defining summands are not intrinsically distinguished: other diagonal copies inside their isotypic component have the same three-point weight diagram. Thus the displayed diagrams account for every irreducible submodule type, as well as showing both copies in this decomposition.
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