Incoming links: Matrix Lie group
Lie Groups, Physics, and Geometry by Robert Gilmore (2008) Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
The author seems to have uploaded the entire book by chapters at: www.physics.drexel.edu/~bob/LieGroups.html
And the author is the cutest: www.physics.drexel.edu/~bob/Personal.html.
Overview:
- Chapter 3: gives a bunch of examples of important matrix Lie groups. These are done by imposing certain types of constraints on the general linear group, to obtain subgroups of the general linear group. Feels like the start of a classification
- Chapter 4: defines Lie algebra. Does some basic examples with them, but not much of deep interest, that is mostl left for Chapter 7
- Chapter 5: calculates the Lie algebra for all examples from chapter 3
- Chapter 6: don't know
- Chapter 7: describes how the exponential map links Lie algebras to Lie groups
Basically, a "representation" means associating each group element as an invertible matrices, i.e. a matrix in (possibly some subset of) , that has the same properties as the group.
Or in other words, associating to the more abstract notion of a group more concrete objects with which we are familiar (e.g. a matrix).
Each such matrix then represents one specific element of the group.
This is basically what everyone does (or should do!) when starting to study Lie groups: we start looking at matrix Lie groups, which are very concrete.
Or more precisely, mapping each group element to a linear map over some vector field (which can be represented by a matrix infinite dimension), in a way that respects the group operations:
As shown at Physics from Symmetry by Jakob Schwichtenberg (2015)
- page 51, a representation is not unique, we can even use matrices of different dimensions to represent the same group
- 3.6 classifies the representations of . There is only one possibility per dimension!
- 3.7 "The Lorentz Group O(1,3)" mentions that even for a "simple" group such as the Lorentz group, not all representations can be described in terms of matrices, and that we can construct such representations with the help of Lie group theory, and that they have fundamental physical application
Bibliography:
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rDzaKASMTM "RT1: Representation Theory Basics" by MathDoctorBob (2011). Too much theory, give me the motivation!
- www.quantamagazine.org/the-useless-perspective-that-transformed-mathematics-20200609 The "Useless" Perspective That Transformed Mathematics by Quanta Magazine (2020). Maybe there is something in there amidst the "the reader might not know what a matrix is" stuff.