The complex regular representation has basis and left action
If is the identity, then
so . Thus is a faithful representation.
By Maschke's theorem, the regular representation decomposes as a direct sum of irreducibles,
Its kernel is the intersection of the kernels of the constituent representations:
Each constituent kernel is a normal subgroup of . If is simple, every such kernel is either or . They cannot all be , because then their intersection would be , contradicting faithfulness of the regular representation. Hence some has trivial kernel. Therefore every finite simple group has a faithful irreducible representation of a finite simple group.
Schur lemma says that an intertwining linear map between irreducible finite-dimensional complex representations is either zero or an isomorphism. In particular, every endomorphism of an irreducible complex representation is a scalar multiple of the identity.
A continuous representation of a topological group is a continuous homomorphism
for a finite-dimensional complex vector space . It is a unitary representation if has a positive-definite Hermitian inner product for which
for every and .
For , start with any positive-definite Hermitian form and average it using normalized Haar measure:
Translation invariance makes this form -invariant, and positivity is preserved, proving unitarity. Since is abelian, the operators commute; since they are unitary, they are normal. Simultaneous diagonalization therefore decomposes into common one-dimensional eigenspaces. Thus every representation of the circle group is a direct sum of one-dimensional representations.
Write
The group law and inverse are
A calculation gives
Every element of the centre occurs by taking, for example, and . Hence the commutator subgroup is exactly . The image of a one-dimensional representation is abelian, so the one-dimensional representation kills the commutator subgroup and its kernel contains .
Now let be a complex representation of . Its restriction to the central subgroup
is a representation of the circle group. Decompose it into its distinct weight spaces:
Because is central, every commutes with its action and preserves every common eigenspace. Thus the are -subrepresentations, as asserted by the central circle weight-space decomposition.
Let . The map
is a one-dimensional representation of ; after composition with , its kernel contains . On its value is
so . A continuous character of has the form ; the displayed identity forces . Therefore every is trivial. Since the were distinct, and .
It follows that every finite-dimensional complex representation of kills the entire nontrivial central circle . Its kernel is therefore nontrivial, so no such representation is faithful. This is the real Heisenberg quotient has no faithful finite-dimensional representation.