Past exam of the groups and representations course of the University of Oxford / 2018 / 4 / d

For the usual colour SU(3) fixing the fourth coordinate of the SU(4) defining representation,Taking the exterior square givesThe identification ${\Lambda }^{2}3\cong \overline{3}$ follows by contracting an antisymmetric tensor with the invariant three-index Levi-Civita symbol. Combining this with c gives all colour multiplets:A colour triplet has the color charge transformation law of a quark, an antitriplet that of an antiquark, and a colour singlet is colour-neutral, as a lepton is. Thus both parent representations permit quark-like and antiquark-like colour sectors; the vector has one neutral sector and the spinor two. These are colour assignments only. They do not determine particle spin, statistics, electric charge, weak quantum numbers or a full generation of the Standard Model. In a real parent field the conjugate colour sectors may describe one complex colour field and its conjugate, rather than independent particle species.

Global group qualification. The printed chain is correct at the Lie algebra level, $\mathfrak{su}(3)\subset \mathfrak{su}(4)\cong \mathfrak{so}(6)\subset \mathfrak{so}(7)$. Globally its simply connected form is $SU(3)\subset SU(4)\cong \mathrm{Spin}(6)\subset \mathrm{Spin}(7)$. The standard map of SU(4) into $SO(7)$ through $6\oplus 1$ has a nontrivial kernel: the concrete central element $-I_4$ acts as $+I_6$ on ${\Lambda }^{2}4$ and trivially on the singlet representation. Its image is $SO(6)\cong SU(4)/\{\pm I_4\}$, rather than an injective copy of SU(4) under this map.

The global form obstruction for the Spin7 spinor is explicit: the central element $-1$ of the Spin group $\mathrm{Spin}(7)$ maps to the identity in $SO(7)$ but acts as $-I_8$ on the eight-dimensional spin representation. Equivalently $-I_4$ acts as $-I$ on both $4$ and $\overline{4}$ in its restriction. Therefore the spinor does not descend to a genuine SO(7) group representation. A theory containing that spinor needs the Spin group global form, or must understand the source's notation as specifying only its Lie algebra. The displayed colour branchings remain valid with this correction.