Killing dual of a coroot ($\mathcal{B}(H_{\alpha })={\sum }_{\beta \in \Phi }\beta (H_{\alpha })\beta$)

Let $\mathcal{B}(H)=B(H,\cdot )$ be the Killing form identification of a Cartan subalgebra with its dual. The root-space decomposition gives $B(H,K)={\sum }_{\beta \in \Phi }\beta (H)\beta (K)$, and therefore the displayed root expansion. On the real coroot span its coefficients are real, proving $\mathcal{B}({\mathfrak{h}}_{\mathbb{R}})\subseteq \mathbb{R}P$. For ${\mathfrak{sl}}_3$ and $H_{12}=E_{11}-E_{22}$, the formula gives $\mathcal{B}(H_{12})=6(L_1-L_2)$. The normalization is $B(X,Y)=\mathrm{tr}(\mathrm{ad}X\mathrm{ad}Y)$, not a rescaled trace form.

// Target: semisimple-lie-algebra.bigb