Quaternionic root systems and subgroups of the Aut (F4)

Mehmet Koca, Muataz Al Barwani, Ramazan Ko̧

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Cayley-Dickson doubling procedure is used to construct the root systems of some celebrated Lie algebras in terms of the integer elements of the division algebras of real numbers, complex numbers, quaternions, and octonions. Starting with the roots and weights of SU(2) expressed as the real numbers one can construct the root systems of the Lie algebras of SO(4), SP(2)≈SO(5), SO(8), SO(9), F4 and E8 in terms of the discrete elements of the division algebras. The roots themselves display the groups structures besides the octonionic roots of E8 which form a closed octonion algebra. The automorphism group Aut (F4) of the Dynkin diagram of F4 of order 2304, the largest crystallographic group in four-dimensional Euclidean space, is realized as the direct product of two binary octahedral group of quaternions preserving the quaternionic root system of F4. The Weyl groups of many Lie algebras, such as, G2, SO(7), SO(8), SO(9), SU(3)XSU(3), and SP(3)×SU(2) have been constructed as the subgroups of Aut (F4). We have also classified the other non-parabolic subgroups of Aut (F4) which are not Weyl groups. Two subgroups of orders 192 with different conjugacy classes occur as maximal subgroups in the finite subgroups of the Lie group G2 of orders 12096 and 1344 and proves to be useful in their constructions. The triality of SO(8) manifesting itself as the cyclic symmetry of the quaternionic imaginary units e1, e2, e3 is used to show that SO(7) and SO(9) can be embedded, triply symmetric way in SO(8) and F4 in respectively.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number043507
JournalJournal of Mathematical Physics
Volume47
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 2006
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
  • Mathematical Physics

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