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For a Matrix Lie group $G$, the left Maurer-Cartan form identifies tangent vectors with the Lie algebra by translating them to the identity:It is a Lie algebra-valued differential form of degree one. For a fixed $h\in G$, replacing $g$ by $hg$ gives $(hg{)}^{-1}d(hg)=g^{-1}dg$, so it is a left-invariant differential form.

Differentiate $g^{-1}g=I$ to get $d(g^{-1})=-g^{-1}(dg)g^{-1}$. The exterior derivative then givesHere the exterior product of matrix-valued differential forms includes matrix multiplication; the order of the matrices matters. Hence the Maurer-Cartan equation is

Write $\rho ={\sigma }^{\alpha }{T}_{\alpha }$. Antisymmetry of the exterior product impliesComparison of the Lie algebra components yields the Maurer-Cartan equation in a Lie-algebra basis:Thus the canonical antisymmetric choice is $f^{\gamma }{}_{\alpha \beta }=-\frac{1}{2}{c}^{\gamma }{}_{\alpha \beta }$. The factor one half is required because the sum includes both ordered pairs $(\alpha ,\beta )$ and $(\beta ,\alpha )$. If only $\alpha <\beta$ is summed, its coefficient is $-c^{\gamma }{}_{\alpha \beta }$. Strictly, the equality of differential forms determines only the antisymmetric part of $f$: one may add any tensor symmetric in $\alpha ,\beta$ without changing it. This is the symmetric-part ambiguity in Maurer-Cartan coefficients.

A faithful matrix representation of the orientation-preserving real affine group isIts action on $(x,1{)}^T$ has first component $ax+b$. The group operation and inverse areDifferent transformations have different matrix entries, proving faithfulness. With the Lie algebra basisthe left Maurer-Cartan form isThe requested left-invariant differential forms therefore form the Maurer-Cartan coframe of the real affine group:For a direct invariance check, left translation by $(a_0,b_0)$ sends $(a,b)$ to $(a_{0}a,b_0+a_{0}b)$, and the pullbacks of the two displayed differential forms are unchanged. Their dual left-invariant vector fields are $a{\partial }_a$ and $a{\partial }_b$, whose bracket is $a{\partial }_b$, in agreement with $[D,T]=T$.