Cartan criterion for semisimplicity Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
A finite-dimensional complex Lie algebra is semisimple if and only if its Killing form is nondegenerate.
Eigenspaces of a symplectic involution 2026-10-05
If preserves a nondegenerate bilinear form that is alternating and satisfies on a finite-dimensional vector space over a field of characteristic different from two, thenThe two eigenspaces are orthogonal for , since . Each restricted form is nondegenerate: a vector annihilating its own eigenspace also annihilates the other and hence all of . Both dimensions are even, say and . Consequently as an integer obtained from the eigenspace dimensions. Over the real numbers this gives the congruence .
Invariant bilinear form as an intertwiner Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
A bilinear form on is invariant exactly when is a -homomorphism . On an irreducible representation, Schur's lemma makes a nonzero such form nondegenerate and unique up to scale.
Lorentzian manifold Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
A smooth manifold carrying a nondegenerate bilinear form on each tangent space, with one negative and all remaining positive eigenvalues, or the overall reversed-sign convention. Its nonzero null vectors have vanishing metric quadratic form.
Metric tensor Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
A metric tensor is a nondegenerate symmetric covariant tensor that defines squared line elements by .
Nondegeneracy of the trace form of a number field Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 ib Paper 2 8B Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 20 1 iii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Under the given rank hypothesis, the necessary and sufficient local condition isVanishing only at the single point would not suffice: an extension preserves the coordinate Poisson brackets throughout its domain. Necessity follows from the coordinate criterion just proved.
For sufficiency, put and . Because the symplectic form is a nondegenerate bilinear form at every point, the independent differentials give independent fields . They commute, sinceMoreover , so they span the tangent spaces of the -dimensional fibres of the submersion . Choose a local section transverse to those fibres. Its joint local flow defines coordinates byThe inverse function theorem makes a local diffeomorphism, and commuting flows give .
In these coordinates . Each flow preserves the symplectic form, by Cartan's magic formula. Thus its coefficients are independent of , andwhere is a closed differential two-form on the base. On a small ball, the Poincare lemma gives , with . DefineThenConsequently the original coordinates are extended to the required canonical transformation , with the prescribed first half . Its Jacobian matrix is invertible by construction. This is the canonical completion of independent commuting functions. For the printed data, the flows and resulting canonical transformation can be taken , which is sufficient to preserve the symplectic form; smooth data give smooth coordinates.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 20 2 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
A function is an integral of motion of when it is constant along every trajectory of the Hamiltonian flow. Infinitesimally,The antisymmetry of a Lie bracket of the Poisson bracket gives . Hence is also an integral of motion of .
For the commuting assertion, , because is closed. The contraction identity for a Lie bracket of vector fields then givesSince the symplectic form is a nondegenerate bilinear form at every point, the Hamiltonian vector fields commute:With the chosen convention the general identity is . Equivalently, it follows by applying the Jacobi identity for the Poisson bracket to an arbitrary test function. Local flows commute whenever both compositions are defined; no global completeness assumption is needed.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 2 5 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Let be a finite-dimensional Lie algebra representation. The form denoted isIt is the Trace form of a Lie algebra representation; the Killing form without a subscript is specifically the case , . The distinction matters: the form of the trivial representation cannot detect whether the algebra is semisimple.
Linearity of and trace proves bilinearity, and cyclicity of the trace gives symmetry. With , and , the representation identity givesThus it is an invariant bilinear form on a Lie algebra, and in particular the Adjoint representation preserves the Killing form.
The Cartan solvability criterion has two useful formulations. For a finite-dimensional complex Lie algebra ,Its matrix version says that a Lie subalgebra is solvable precisely when for all and . We prove the matrix version first, with ordinary trace in .
If is solvable, the Lie theorem makes all its matrices upper triangular. Their commutators are strictly upper triangular, so multiplying such a matrix by an upper triangular one still has zero diagonal and hence zero trace. This proves the easy direction.
Conversely assume the trace-orthogonality condition and fix . We show that all eigenvalues of vanish. Use its Additive Jordan decomposition with . On the generalized eigenspace of , define an auxiliary endomorphism to be . This need not be in ; we only need control of its commutator with .
On , acts by and by . Choose a polynomial with and at the finitely many distinct differences. Polynomial interpolation supplies it because equal differences have equal conjugates. Therefore .
The adjoint compatibility of additive Jordan decomposition identifies as the semisimple part of . Elementary Jordan–Chevalley decomposition gives for a polynomial with . Hence is a polynomial in with zero constant term. Since maps into and preserves that Lie algebra ideal, we obtainNo assumption that , or belongs to was made.
Write with . Cyclicity and the assumed orthogonality now giveOn the other hand the nilpotent parts have zero trace on each generalized eigenspace, soThus all are zero and is a nilpotent endomorphism. This is the Conjugate-spectrum proof of Cartan solvability.
The permitted Engel theorem, in the form needed here, states: a finite-dimensional Lie subalgebra of endomorphisms in which every element is nilpotent has a nonzero vector annihilated by all its elements, and iteration on quotients makes every element simultaneously strictly upper triangular. Apply it to . The strictly upper triangular algebra is nilpotent, so is a nilpotent Lie algebra and therefore solvable. Since is abelian, the derived series of a Lie algebra of terminates too. This proves the matrix criterion.
Apply it to . The condition on is exactly the matrix condition on . Thus is solvable. The kernel of is the center of a Lie algebra, which is abelian, so is solvable as well: once the derived series maps to zero it is central, and its next term vanishes. Conversely a solvable has solvable adjoint image, proving the abstract Cartan solvability criterion in both directions.
A finite-dimensional Lie algebra is a semisimple Lie algebra when it has no nonzero solvable Lie algebra ideal, equivalently its solvable radical is zero. Let . Invariance makes an ideal. For , induces zero on , and the block trace gives , where is the adjoint Killing form of itself. The Cartan solvability criterion therefore makes solvable. If is semisimple, .
Conversely suppose is a nondegenerate bilinear form. If a nonzero solvable ideal existed, its last nonzero derived term would be an abelian ideal of . For and , the operator has image in and is zero on , so its square and its trace are zero. Thus , contradicting nondegeneracy. This is Abelian ideals lie in the radical of the Killing form. We conclude the Cartan criterion for semisimplicity:
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 102 2 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
For the finite-dimensional Lie algebra representation specified in the PDF, a Lie-invariant bilinear form satisfiesThe dual Lie algebra representation has action , so the map defined by is an intertwining operator. If is irreducible and , its kernel is zero. Since have equal finite dimension, is an isomorphism, and is a nondegenerate bilinear form.
For , the composition is a representation endomorphism. Over an algebraically closed field, the Schur lemma makes it scalar, provingTransposing gives another Lie-invariant bilinear form. For , write ; transposing twice gives . In field characteristic different from two, this means or . Thus the form is a symmetric bilinear form or an alternating bilinear form, respectively. The zero form has both properties. In the second case forces , using the same characteristic assumption.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 114 5 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
The ordinary Poincare duality statement here is for a compact manifold without boundary, of dimension , oriented over the field . Its fundamental class induces isomorphismsfor every . For a manifold with boundary the appropriate statement is Poincare-Lefschetz duality with relative groups; the ordinary pairing need not be nondegenerate. Over a field, the universal coefficient theorem for cohomology identifies with the full dual of . The cap-cup evaluation identity and duality therefore makea perfect pairing. Explicitly, a nonzero has a nonzero cap product, and a linear functional on its homology group takes a nonzero value on that product. The same argument in the other variable proves nonsingularity. On the whole graded cohomology, define by taking the degree- part of before evaluation. For a nonzero component choose homogeneous of degree to pair nontrivially with it. All other components contribute zero in degree . This proves that the Poincare duality pairing is a nondegenerate bilinear form on ; it need not be symmetric on all degrees.
Put , so is positive and odd, and orient each by its product orientation. The Künneth theorem gives integral cohomology in degrees zero and , in degree , and zero elsewhere. Its two degree- generators have , equal to its top orientation class, and .
For a connected sum of oriented manifolds, excision and the long exact sequence for deleting a ball show that deleting a ball removes the top homology class and leaves all lower positive homology groups unchanged. The boundary sphere represents zero in the punctured manifold: it is the boundary of its relative fundamental chain. In the Mayer–Vietoris sequence for the two punctured pieces joined along the separating sphere, the orientation class of the connected sum maps onto that sphere's class. The intermediate positive groups are consequently the direct sums of the groups of the two original manifolds. This also covers , where the sphere is a circle and the boundary-class observation is necessary in the middle degree. Iterating and applying the universal coefficient theorem for cohomology givesHere ; under the conventional extension the same formula holds with a zero middle group.
Let be the top cohomological orientation class. The connected-sum pinch map to the wedge of the sphere products gives degree-one projections to each summand. Pull back the two factor classes from summand to obtain . Their product is , since the projection has degree one. Classes from different wedge summands have zero positive-degree cup products, and graded commutativity of the cup product supplies the reversed sign. Thus the full cohomology ring of a connected sum of odd-dimensional sphere products is the graded free abelian group just displayed with multiplicationThe unit is , and times any positive-degree class is zero by dimension. This describes all products, including .
The smooth involution is a diffeomorphism, since it is its own inverse. Its fixed set is closed; discreteness and compactness therefore make it finite. The supplied positivity of makes every fixed point nondegenerate with local index . The Lefschetz-Hopf fixed-point theorem then givesIndeed the degree-zero and top-degree traces are both one, because the manifold is connected and preserves its orientation; the middle degree is odd.
On , the form is a nondegenerate alternating bilinear form by Poincare duality and the oddness of . Thus it is a symplectic vector space of dimension . Naturality and orientation preservation show that preserves , and . For the eigenspaces of a symplectic involution, write : the polynomial has distinct roots over . If and , then , so the two vector subspaces are orthogonal. Each restricted form is nondegenerate, since a vector annihilating its own vector subspace also annihilates the other and hence all of . Their dimensions are therefore even, say , , with . ConsequentlyThis proves the fixed-point congruence for an involution on an odd-sphere connected sum: