Equip the finite-dimensional real vector space with a positive-definite inner product. A reduced crystallographic root system is a finite set spanning such that, for every ,
where is the orthogonal reflection in . The Weyl group is . It permutes the finite set . Its action is faithful because spans : an element fixing every root fixes every vector. Hence it embeds in the finite symmetric group of and is finite.
A Cartan subalgebra is a nilpotent self-normalizing Lie subalgebra. For a finite-dimensional complex semisimple Lie algebra it is equivalently a maximal toral subalgebra: a maximal abelian subalgebra whose elements have diagonalizable adjoint actions. The commuting semisimple operators give the root-space decomposition
The nonzero weights are the roots. Their real span inside the complex dual , with the positive-definite real inner product induced by the Killing form, is the Euclidean space in which they form a reduced crystallographic root system. In particular one uses this real span, rather than treating all of as a real vector space of twice the rank.
For the specified Special orthogonal Lie algebra, put . The matrix relation is . Thus its diagonal Cartan subalgebra consists of
Let . The matrix units satisfy , where . A basis of root vectors is supplied, for , by
These are twelve independent off-diagonal matrices. Together with the three diagonal generators, they account for the full dimension , so no further roots occur. Consequently
Choose the simple roots
The six positive roots are , and every other root is their negative. In the standard orthonormal coordinates all roots have squared length , and their Cartan matrix is
Its Dynkin diagram is the connected chain . A decomposition into mutually orthogonal nonempty root systems would separate this connected set of simple roots, which is impossible. Thus the root system is irreducible. The chain is also the diagram , which is the root system of . The classification of complex semisimple Lie algebras by their root systems yields the Lie algebra isomorphism
An explicit explanation of this coincidence uses the exterior-power Lie algebra representation of on , a six-dimensional space. After choosing a volume form, defines a nondegenerate symmetric bilinear form on that exterior square. The induced action preserves it because a traceless endomorphism acts trivially on the top exterior power. This gives a nonzero homomorphism . Its kernel is an ideal in the simple algebra , so it is zero; equal dimensions then make it an isomorphism. Over all nondegenerate symmetric forms in dimension six are equivalent, including the form with matrix .
Let be the permutation character of . Young's rule gives , with integer Kostka multiplicities. This dominance-triangular system has diagonal entries one, so recursive subtraction expresses every irreducible character as an integer linear combination of permutation characters. The latter count fixed tabloids, proving that all are integers.
For a -cycle, the Murnaghan–Nakayama rule reduces to
where height is the number of occupied rows minus one, and is the degree of the remaining Specht character at the identity. In particular a full -cycle has character zero unless is a hook, in which case the value is .

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