Use the standard sl2 triple , , . In the tensor product of Lie algebra representations, each operator acts on both factors. Put
These twelve vectors form a weight basis, and . Thus the bases of the weight spaces are
There are no other weights. The weight diagram shows their multiplicities, with the decomposition also displayed for comparison.
Figure 1.
Weights and multiplicities of the cubic by quadratic sl2 tensor product and its irreducible summands
. Details.
The raising operator acts by
with out-of-range terms omitted. At weights five, three and one its kernels are respectively spanned by
At weight one the kernel equations are and for . At weight minus one they are , , , which force zero; the maps on the two remaining negative-weight spaces are injective as well. Thus these three lines give all nonzero highest-weight vectors up to scalar, at their respective weights. A linear combination of different lines is killed by but is not a weight vector, so is not a highest-weight vector.
The lowering operator is
In particular,
is an explicit basis for the submodule . Indeed , , , and the two vectors have weights . The analogous strings from have dimensions six and four. Their distinct irreducible highest weights and total dimension twelve give the sl2 tensor product of cubic and quadratic symmetric powers