The Poisson bracket is . Since , the scalar triple product vanishes, and
Equivalently, check the identity on and extend to every polynomial using the Leibniz rule. Thus is a Casimir function of a Poisson manifold of this rotational Lie-Poisson structure on R3.
The Hamilton's equations are
Linearization about gives , , . The two nonzero exponents satisfy . Consequently
When is outside this interval the transverse motion is oscillatory. At equality the linearization is nonhyperbolic; if just one transverse coupling vanishes, the other permits secular linear growth, rather than an exponential instability. This is the familiar intermediate-axis instability described by the Euler equations for a torque-free rigid body.
The dot product and Euclidean norm are and . For every real ,
Its quadratic discriminant is nonpositive, proving the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality . In the inequality asked for, equality holds exactly when is a positive scalar multiple of , and
Using the Levi-Civita symbol and its contraction identity,
Put , the scalar triple product. Cyclic symmetry gives , so each requested angle satisfies . If every pairwise angle is and , the preceding identity gives
and therefore . This is when ; for a right-handed orthonormal basis and , has norm .
The three planes have equations , , and . They meet at one point exactly when , meaning their normals are linearly independent vectors. The point is
Using the Levi-Civita symbol and the epsilon-delta identity,
This proves the vector triple product identity
Applying it inside the scalar triple product gives Lagrange's identity
Using Einstein notation and
we obtain
Thus
The scalar triple product is
Put . When , the three vectors
form the reciprocal basis to , so . Their scalar triple product is . Therefore
since the cyclic permutation preserves orientation. The identity also holds when , either by continuity or directly because the cross products are then linearly dependent.
For the given basis , the same identities give
If , dotting with gives , so the are linearly independent and hence form a basis. Moreover, , so the original basis is reciprocal to the primed basis. Uniqueness of a reciprocal basis gives
Every vector has a unique expansion , and then
This is an integer for every integer triple exactly when every is an integer. Hence all such points are
They form the reciprocal lattice in the convention without a factor of .
Let
Linear independence implies that the scalar triple product is nonzero. Applying the vector triple-product formulas to recovers the coefficients of in the basis . Equivalently, the reciprocal basis to is
Taking scalar products with therefore yields
At late time and . Define the elementary symmetric polynomials
Then part ii reduces to
where a prime removes the momentum-conserving Dirac delta distribution and
Expanding the product gives
Repeated integration by parts reduces every negative power to the supplied logarithmic integral. The power divergences are real and disappear when the imaginary part is taken. Writing
one obtains
Consequently the late-time parity-odd primordial trispectrum is
Its factor of is required by reality of a momentum-space scalar correlator: reversing all momenta complex-conjugates the correlator, while the scalar triple product changes sign.
Let the Bravais lattice have primitive vectors , and put
The reciprocal lattice has the basis
The scalar triple product and cross product identities give
Consequently every satisfies for every lattice point , and conversely these three conditions force the coefficients of in the reciprocal basis to be integers. This proves that the displayed vectors generate .
In the Born approximation, suppose that the crystal potential is the sum of translates of one atomic potential over the finite set of lattice sites. Its Fourier transform at the momentum transfer factors as
Thus the single-atom scattering amplitude is multiplied by the crystal lattice structure factor . Writing
separates the sum into three finite geometric series. For this gives
When the are large, a factor has a sharp maximum when . All three factors are therefore simultaneously large precisely when . These are the reciprocal-lattice peaks of a finite crystal.
For the stated Body-centered cubic lattice basis,
the reciprocal-basis formula gives
Equivalently,
The shortest nonzero reciprocal vectors have squared Euclidean norm , so
In elastic scattering, . If and is the angle between and , Euclidean geometry gives
The first possible diffraction peak therefore occurs at
as , by the small-angle approximation. This is the elastic Bragg scattering condition for the shortest reciprocal-lattice vector.
Reciprocal basis Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
For a basis with scalar triple product , the reciprocal vectors are cyclic cross products divided by and satisfy . This construction is used for the basis of a reciprocal lattice.