Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2005 / iii / Paper 18 / 1

Sending a matrix to its last column gives the special orthogonal sphere fibrationThe action is transitive and the stabilizer of that column is $SO(n-1)$. Local orthonormal frames, obtained by Gram-Schmidt process near a chosen unit vector, give local sections and hence local bundle trivializations. This allows the long exact sequence of homotopy groups of a fibration to be applied.

At the bottom of the induction, $SO(1)$ is a point and $SO(2)$ is the rotation circle $S^1$. For $SO(3)$, identify ${\mathbb{R}}^3$ with imaginary quaternions. A unit quaternion acts by $v\mapsto qv{q}^{-1}$, preserving length and orientation. Every rotation through angle $\theta$ about a unit imaginary axis $u$ comes from $q=\cos (\theta /2)+u\sin (\theta /2)$. The kernel is precisely $\{1,-1\}$, since a quaternion commuting with all imaginary quaternions is real. Thus this gives the twofold covering space $S^3\to SO(3)$. Its simply connected total space is the universal cover, yielding ${\pi }_{1}SO(3)=\mathbb{Z}/2$. Coverings induce isomorphisms on higher homotopy groups, so ${\pi }_{2}SO(3)={\pi }_2{S}^3=0$ and ${\pi }_{3}SO(3)={\pi }_3{S}^3=\mathbb{Z}$.

For $n\ge 4$, both ${\pi }_1{S}^{n-1}$ and ${\pi }_2{S}^{n-1}$ vanish. The Serre fibration sequence therefore identifies ${\pi }_{1}SO(n-1)$ with ${\pi }_{1}SO(n)$ and propagates vanishing of ${\pi }_2$. Path-connectedness also propagates from connected fiber and base. Consequently the full low-degree answer isHere ${\pi }_0$ records the single connected component.

For the remaining third group use $SO(3)\to SO(4)\to S^3$. The relevant exact segment, using the supplied fourth homotopy group, isThe first homomorphism is zero since a torsion group cannot map nontrivially to $\mathbb{Z}$. Thus it reduces to a short exact sequence $0\to \mathbb{Z}\to {\pi }_{3}SO(4)\to \mathbb{Z}\to 0$. These groups are abelian and the final free group has a lift of its generator, so the sequence splits. ThereforeThese are the low homotopy groups of special orthogonal groups.