Abelian progression 2026-10-03
An abelian progression is a generalized arithmetic progression inside an abelian group. It is the image of an integer box under a group homomorphism.
Additive character Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-09-29
An additive character of a locally compact field is a continuous group homomorphism from to the complex unit circle.
Cayley theorem embeds a finite group of order into . Extend to letters and multiply it by the disjoint transposition exactly when is odd. Additivity of parity makes this an injective group homomorphism into the alternating group . Thus every finite group is isomorphic to a subgroup of some alternating group.
For group homomorphisms , this Picard group class is symmetric and additive in both arguments. The Theorem of the Cube says precisely that the third additive difference of vanishes, proving additivity of the cross-effect. The Poincaré line bundle expresses it as , so it depends only on the Néron-Severi group class of . Its associated homomorphism is .
Category of groups 2026-10-06
The category of groups has groups as objects and group homomorphisms as morphisms. Its product is the direct product of groups, and its coproduct is the free product, as expressed by the universal property of a free product.
Characters of a real torus 2026-10-06
Every continuous group homomorphism is for a unique in the dual lattice. Compactness forces unit modulus, and lifting the character to the simply connected cover makes its phase a real linear functional. These characters are the frequencies of torus Fourier series.
Dual abelian variety 2026-10-07
The dual of an abelian variety represents algebraically trivial line bundles rigidified at the origin. Its group law is tensor product. A group homomorphism induces by pullback of these line bundles.
Extension cocycle 2026-09-24
An extension cocycle is the two-cocycle obtained from a section of a group extension. It measures the failure of the section to be a group homomorphism.
If has generators, there are at most group homomorphisms . Each subgroup of index is a point stabilizer in a transitive coset group action, so there are at most such subgroups. Consequently finitely many subgroups have index at most any fixed bound. Intersecting them gives a finite-index characteristic subgroup, useful in proving residual finiteness of semidirect products.
Finite quotient of a group 2026-10-06
A finite quotient is the image of a group under a surjective group homomorphism to a finite group. A group has no nontrivial finite quotients exactly when every homomorphism from it to a finite group is trivial. This property does not prohibit finite or finite-quotient-bearing subgroups.
Group automorphism 2026-09-24
Group embedding Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
A group embedding is an injective group homomorphism. It identifies its domain with an isomorphic subgroup of its codomain.
Group isomorphism 2026-09-24
A group isomorphism is a bijective group homomorphism. Its inverse is automatically a group homomorphism.
Group representation Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
A group representation is a group homomorphism from a group to the general linear group of a vector space. It realizes abstract group elements as invertible linear transformations.
Halving cocycle with rational two-torsion 2026-10-07
Suppose an elliptic curve has all four geometric 2-torsion points rational. For choose with . The function takes values in and is a group homomorphism from the absolute Galois group to : its usual cocycle law becomes additivity because the action on is trivial. Replacing by another half, or by with , leaves it unchanged. Adding chosen halves proves additivity in . Its kernel in is zero, since precisely when the chosen half is rational. This constructs the injective map directly, without assuming any theorem of two-descent on an elliptic curve or finite generation of the Mordell-Weil group.
Homomorphism from a finite cyclic group 2026-10-07
For any group , evaluation at a chosen generator of a group of gives a bijection between group homomorphisms and elements satisfying . A group homomorphism must send to . Conversely, this formula is well-defined because exponents differing by a multiple of give equal powers, and it respects multiplication. The displayed correspondence is a bijection of sets; it is not claimed to be a group isomorphism for a nonabelian target. In a symmetric group, the order of a group element is the least common multiple of its disjoint cycle lengths, making this correspondence easy to enumerate.
Lie subgroup 2026-10-05
Möbius group 2026-10-06
The Möbius group is the group of all Möbius transformations of the Riemann sphere, under function composition. An invertible complex matrix represents , and nonzero scalar multiples represent the same transformation. Rescaling a representative to determinant one gives a surjective group homomorphism with kernel of a group homomorphism . Thus it is also the projective linear group and the quotient .
In odd dimension, the map is a surjective group homomorphism from the orthogonal group to the special orthogonal group, with kernel of a group homomorphism . Scalar matrices commute, and . Together with the determinant sign, it identifies with the direct product of groups . In even dimension, scalar multiplication by does not repair the determinant, so this construction does not give the same splitting.