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Choose a Cartan subalgebra, simple roots ${\alpha }_1,\dots ,{\alpha }_r$, and root vectors $e_i,f_i$ normalized by $[e_i,f_i]=h_i={\alpha }_i^{\vee }$. LetHere the coroots lie in the Cartan subalgebra, and ${\alpha }_i({\rho }^{\vee })=1$. This last identity is the Weyl vector identity applied to the dual root system. For distinct simple roots, ${\alpha }_i-{\alpha }_j$ is not a root, hence $[e_i,f_j]=0$. ConsequentlyThese are exactly the sl2 Lie algebra relations. For nonzero $\mathfrak{g}$ the resulting homomorphism from ${\mathfrak{sl}}_2$ is nonzero and therefore injective, since ${\mathfrak{sl}}_2$ is simple. Its image is a Principal sl2 subalgebra. Equivalently its raising element is a principal nilpotent element, a nilpotent element with Lie algebra centralizer of dimension equal to the rank. The construction works for a semisimple Lie algebra with several simple factors by taking the triple in every factor, giving one diagonally embedded ${\mathfrak{sl}}_2$. This is the construction of a principal sl2 triple.

For a representation $V$, restrict to this subalgebra and take its formal character. If $V_{\mu }$ is the weight space for the original Cartan subalgebra, the resulting q-character of a highest-weight representation, or the analogous q-character for any finite-dimensional representation, isIt is independent of conjugating the chosen principal triple. In particular a root $\beta ={\sum }_i{k}_i{\alpha }_i$ has grading $\beta (h)=2{\sum }_i{k}_i$. Some conventions use $q^{h/2}$ instead; that convention divides all exponents here by two. The normalization above agrees with the ordinary sl2 Lie algebra character in the preceding part.

Choose a short simple root ${\alpha }_1$ and a long simple root ${\alpha }_2$, with $|{\alpha }_2{|}^2=3|{\alpha }_1{|}^2$ and angle $150^{\circ }$. The six positive roots of the G2 root system areand their negatives complete the two concentric hexagons of short and long roots. The fundamental weights areso ${\omega }_1$ is itself a short root and ${\omega }_2$ is the highest root.

The seven-dimensional representation $L_{{\omega }_1}$ has weight seteach with weight multiplicity one. Their positive heights are $1,2,3$, so the q-character of a highest-weight representation isThis is one ${\mathfrak{sl}}_2$ weight string, hence

The representation $L_{{\omega }_2}$ is the fourteen-dimensional Adjoint representation. Its nonzero weights are the twelve roots, and its zero-weight space is the two-dimensional Cartan subalgebra. The positive root heights are $1,1,2,3,4,5$, soSplitting this into ordinary ${\mathfrak{sl}}_2$ strings gives