Equivariant Fredholm index (${\mathrm{ind}}_{G}T=[\ker T]-[\mathrm{coker}T]$)

An equivariant Fredholm operator between unitary representations of a compact group has finite-dimensional invariant kernel and cokernel. Their formal difference is its index in the representation ring of a compact group. If domain and target decompose into irreducibles with finite multiplicities $m_{\pi },m_{\pi }^{\prime }$, Schur's lemma makes each intertwining block a matrix on the multiplicity spaces. Its rank cancels between kernel and cokernel, giving ${\mathrm{ind}}_{G}T={\sum }_{\pi }(m_{\pi }-m_{\pi }^{\prime })[\pi ]$, with finitely many nonzero terms.