Affine group 2026-10-07
For a finite-dimensional vector space , the affine group consists of invertible affine maps , where belongs to the general linear group and . Its product is , making it the semidirect product of the translation vector space and its general linear group. On the real line the positive-dilation subgroup is the real affine group used in the adjacent article.
Affine group of the complex line Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
The affine group of the complex line consists of the maps
Composition identifies it with the semidirect product , where acts on a translation coordinate by multiplication.
Let . The Galois group sequence is
For and , choose a lift and define
This is independent of the lift because is abelian. Write additively. As an abelian pro-p group, it is a compact -module, with defined by the limit of integer powers, and the conjugation action is continuous and -linear. It extends to the Iwasawa algebra
Indeed, use the finite quotients of obtained by intersecting it with open normal subgroups of ; on each quotient the action factors through one of these finite group rings. This defines the natural compact Galois module structure, even when is not finitely generated. Choosing identifies with through .
The subgroup is closed: it is the image of the compact group under a continuous map. Every element is a commutator of a lift of with . Consequently
Conversely, in the quotient by , the lift of centralizes the image of . Its powers are dense in the procyclic subgroup they generate. Since these powers map densely onto , compactness shows that is generated by and that procyclic subgroup. The quotient is therefore abelian. Hence
One can also see this by choosing a lift of . Since is a pro-p group, the closed subgroup generated by this lift is , and its map to is an isomorphism. This gives a semidirect product splitting.
The maximal abelian subextension is the fixed field of the closed commutator subgroup. Because is abelian, . Restriction of the Galois correspondence to now gives the coinvariant formula
The closed image above is important: the formula is a quotient of compact groups, not a quotient by an unclosed abstract subgroup. This is abelianization over a Zp-extension.
Use the Lie bracket convention . If denotes a matrix unit, then . Here this gives
Thus, writing , the nonzero structure constants of a Lie algebra are
All other entries vanish. This is the Lie algebra of the translation-dilation group of the plane: its two-dimensional translation ideal is abelian, and acts on that ideal as the identity. In group coordinates the multiplication and inverse are
These formulas also make the semidirect product structure explicit.
Take and its normal subgroup , where . Normality follows either from the sign of a permutation or directly from conjugation sending to or . The quotient group has order two, and provides a section because and is its nonidentity coset.
However, the map from the direct product of groups is not a group homomorphism. In its domain commutes with , whereas their images and do not commute: . This is a split group extension giving a genuine semidirect product instead of a direct product. The pair supplies the required split but non-direct example.
For the general bijectivity assertion, let be the quotient projection and assume is the identity. Given , put and . Then , so and . This proves surjectivity of . If , applying gives , after which cancellation gives . Thus
This section normal form for a split group extension does not require finiteness. The obstruction to its being a homomorphism is the nontrivial conjugation action of the section on .
Construct the free product from the empty word and all finite alternating words , whose syllables in a free product are nonidentity elements of tagged copies of , with adjacent syllables from different factors. Multiply by concatenating, multiplying adjacent elements in the same factor, and deleting identities until the word is reduced. The normal form theorem for a free product gives a unique result; reducing three concatenated words gives the same result under either parenthesization, so multiplication is associative. The empty word is the identity, and the inverse reverses the word and inverts each syllable. Each factor embeds as words of length one.
The universal property of a free product says that for every group and group homomorphisms there is a unique group homomorphism extending both. Explicitly, send a reduced word to the product of its syllable images; reduction preserves this product. This gives existence, while generation by the two factors gives uniqueness.
A standard form of Klein's combination theorem, or the ping-pong lemma, is the following. Let nontrivial subgroups of the homeomorphisms of a topological space have disjoint nonempty subsets with
Assume also that at least one factor has at least three elements. Then the generated subgroup is . The cardinality hypothesis cannot simply be omitted: the same involution swapping two disjoint sets would otherwise provide a counterexample with both factors equal to .
Here is the ping-pong lemma proof. A reduced word of odd length begins and ends in the same factor, so repeated application of the displayed inclusions sends the other factor's domain into that factor's domain. Disjointness shows that the word is not the identity. For an even reduced word, relabel the factors so that , and invert the word if necessary to make it begin with and end in . Choose . The conjugate reduces to an odd-length word beginning with and ending with , both in , so it is nontrivial. Thus no nonempty reduced word lies in the kernel of the natural group homomorphism , proving the theorem.
For an explicit example, let be the one-dimensional Real projective space, and take the Möbius transformations
For every nonzero integer , sends into , while sends into . Indeed when , and . Both transformations have infinite order. Hence the ping-pong lemma gives , a free product of two nontrivial finitely presented groups.
A finitely presented group admits a group presentation with both and finite; it is the quotient of the free group on by the normal closure of . If
with disjoint generator sets, then
Maps from this group presentation to any group are exactly pairs of maps from and , so the universal property of a free product proves the formula.
For a group homomorphism , choose a word representing for each . The presentation of a semidirect product is
The presentation maps onto the specified semidirect product. Conversely, its conjugation relations allow any word to be written as a word from followed by one from . The natural maps from the two factors to the presented group satisfy the full action relation, because conjugation agrees with first on generators and hence on all elements. They define the reverse group homomorphism . The two maps are inverse on every generator, proving the group isomorphism. There are finitely many cross-relations, so the result is again a finitely presented group.
Apply this to the specified permutation action. The presentation is
Eliminate and . The last cross-relation becomes , already implied by . Thus
Both factors are nontrivial finitely presented groups, as required.
Identify the diagonal Cartan subalgebra with coordinates . The root reflection is in the standard Euclidean identification. For the Bn root system, this gives
All unlisted coordinates stay fixed, and . These transformations are coordinate permutations and independent sign changes. They generate exactly the signed symmetric group, so
Here permutes the factors in the semidirect product.
Invertible matrices are closed under multiplication, contain , have associative multiplication, and have inverses by the adjugate formula over the field . The first column can be any nonzero vector and the second any vector outside its span, so
For , the matrix has order three. There is no element of order six: , whose element orders are .
For , is a proper normal subgroup. For , the order-three subgroup in the copy of is proper and normal.
In , take
where is the subgroup of order five. This semidirect product has order and is nonabelian because a nontrivial diagonal element does not commute with translations.