Let be the four-dimensional spinor representation. The tensor product representation splits into its symmetric square and exterior square, with dimensions ten and six. If is a highest-weight vector of , then is a highest-weight vector of weight in the symmetric square. The irreducible representation with that highest weight has dimension ten by solution, exhausting the symmetric square:
For the exterior square, add each pair of distinct weights from solution. The resulting multiset of weights is
Its maximal weight is the highest weight of a five-dimensional irreducible representation. It accounts for the four nonzero weights and one zero weight, leaving a single zero weight. By complete reducibility of semisimple Lie algebra representations, that remaining one-dimensional summand is the trivial representation. Thus , and the spinor tensor square for so5 is
The dimension check is . The trivial representation lies in the exterior square, reflecting the invariant nondegenerate alternating bilinear form of this pseudoreal representation. Although itself does not descend to , its tensor square does: the central element acts as .
Use the basis matrices from solution. Define the Pauli matrices and the two-by-two identity by
The following five Hermitian four-by-four matrices, written as Kronecker products, realize a Euclidean Clifford algebra:
Define the Lie algebra representation on by
These are anti-Hermitian matrices, appropriate to the real compact Lie algebra. For complete explicitness, all ten representation matrices are
Each table entry is the image under of the basis matrix immediately to its left. Since the two-by-two factors are specified above, these Kronecker products specify every entry of each four-by-four matrix.
To verify the representation law, the Clifford algebra relations imply
Apply this identity to and use the commutator product rule. The result is
exactly the Lie bracket relation in solution. Thus is a Lie algebra representation.
It remains to identify its highest weight, rather than just its dimension. The commuting Hermitian Cartan subalgebra operators are
Their simultaneous eigenvalues are . Converting with gives exactly the four weights of in solution. A state with has highest weight , so this Clifford realization of the so5 spin representation is the requested .
Finally, , so
This explicitly exhibits the distinction between the spinor representation of , or of , and a single-valued group representation of .