Linear Representations of Finite Groups William Hargis Representations Theory Structures Studied Linear Representations Character Theory Characters Orthogonality of Characters Character Properties Examples of Characters Cyclic Groups A Brief Introduction to Characters and Representation Theory William Hargis Mathematics DRP Fall 2016 Mentor: Xuqiang (Russell) Qin Dec. 8, 2016
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2 Character TheoryCharactersOrthogonality of CharactersCharacter Properties
3 Examples of CharactersCyclic Groups
LinearRepresentations of
Finite Groups
William Hargis
RepresentationsTheory
Structures Studied
LinearRepresentations
Character Theory
Characters
Orthogonality ofCharacters
Character Properties
Examples ofCharacters
Cyclic Groups
Material studied: Linear Representations of Finite Groupsby Jean-Pierre Serre
LinearRepresentations of
Finite Groups
William Hargis
RepresentationsTheory
Structures Studied
LinearRepresentations
Character Theory
Characters
Orthogonality ofCharacters
Character Properties
Examples ofCharacters
Cyclic Groups
What is Representation Theory?
Representation theory is the study of algebraic structuresby representing the structure’s elements as lineartransformations of vector spaces.
This makes abstract structures more concrete bydescribing the structure in terms of matrices and theiralgebraic operations as matrix operations.
LinearRepresentations of
Finite Groups
William Hargis
RepresentationsTheory
Structures Studied
LinearRepresentations
Character Theory
Characters
Orthogonality ofCharacters
Character Properties
Examples ofCharacters
Cyclic Groups
Structures Studied
Structures studied this way include:
Groups
Associative Algebras
Lie Algebras
LinearRepresentations of
Finite Groups
William Hargis
RepresentationsTheory
Structures Studied
LinearRepresentations
Character Theory
Characters
Orthogonality ofCharacters
Character Properties
Examples ofCharacters
Cyclic Groups
Finite Groups
Finite Groups
Study group actions on structures.
especially operations of groups on vector spaces;other actions are group action on other groups orsets.
Group elements are represented by invertible matricessuch that the group operation is matrix multiplication.
LinearRepresentations of
Finite Groups
William Hargis
RepresentationsTheory
Structures Studied
LinearRepresentations
Character Theory
Characters
Orthogonality ofCharacters
Character Properties
Examples ofCharacters
Cyclic Groups
Linear Representations
Let V be a K -vector space and G a finite group.The linear representation of G is a group homomorphismρ : G → GL(V ).
So, a linear representation is a mapρ : G → GL(V ) s.t. ρ(st) = ρ(s)ρ(t) ∀s, t ∈ G .
LinearRepresentations of
Finite Groups
William Hargis
RepresentationsTheory
Structures Studied
LinearRepresentations
Character Theory
Characters
Orthogonality ofCharacters
Character Properties
Examples ofCharacters
Cyclic Groups
Importance of Linear Representations
Linear representations allow us to state group theoreticproblems in terms of linear algebra.
Linear algebra is well understood; reduces complexity ofproblems.
LinearRepresentations of
Finite Groups
William Hargis
RepresentationsTheory
Structures Studied
LinearRepresentations
Character Theory
Characters
Orthogonality ofCharacters
Character Properties
Examples ofCharacters
Cyclic Groups
Applications of Linear Representations
Applications in the study of geometric structures and inthe physical sciences.
Space Groups
Symmetry groups of the configuration of space.
Lattice Point Groups
Lattice groups define the geometric configurationof crystal structures in materials science andcrystallography.
LinearRepresentations of
Finite Groups
William Hargis
RepresentationsTheory
Structures Studied
LinearRepresentations
Character Theory
Characters
Orthogonality ofCharacters
Character Properties
Examples ofCharacters
Cyclic Groups
Characters
The character of a group representation is a function onthe group that associates the trace of each groupelement’s matrix to the corresponding group element.
Characters contain all of the essential information of therepresentation in a more condensed form.
LinearRepresentations of
Finite Groups
William Hargis
RepresentationsTheory
Structures Studied
LinearRepresentations
Character Theory
Characters
Orthogonality ofCharacters
Character Properties
Examples ofCharacters
Cyclic Groups
Trace Review
Note: Trace is the sum of the diagonal entries of thematrix.
For a representation ρ : G → GL(V ) of a group G on V .the character of ρ is the function χρ : G → F given byχρ(g) = Tr(ρ(g)).
Where F is a field that the finite-dimensional vectorspace V is over.
LinearRepresentations of
Finite Groups
William Hargis
RepresentationsTheory
Structures Studied
LinearRepresentations
Character Theory
Characters
Orthogonality ofCharacters
Character Properties
Examples ofCharacters
Cyclic Groups
Orthogonality of Characters
The space of complex-valued class functions of a finitegroup G has an inner product given by:
{α, β} :=1
G
∑g∈G
α(g) ¯β(g) (1)
From this inner product, the irreducible characters forman orthonormal basis for the space of class functions andan orthogonality relation for the rows of the charactertable. Similarly an orthogonality relation is establishedfor the columns of the character table.
LinearRepresentations of
Finite Groups
William Hargis
RepresentationsTheory
Structures Studied
LinearRepresentations
Character Theory
Characters
Orthogonality ofCharacters
Character Properties
Examples ofCharacters
Cyclic Groups
Consequences of Orthogonality:
Consequences of Orthogonality:
An unknown character can be decomposed as alinear combination of irreducible characters.
The complete character table can be constructedwhen only a few irreducible characters are known.
The order of the group can be found.
LinearRepresentations of
Finite Groups
William Hargis
RepresentationsTheory
Structures Studied
LinearRepresentations
Character Theory
Characters
Orthogonality ofCharacters
Character Properties
Examples ofCharacters
Cyclic Groups
Character Properties
A character χρ is irreducible if ρ is irreducible.
One can read the dimension of the vector spacedirectly from the character.
Characters are class functions; take a constant valueon a given conjugacy.
The number of irreducible characters of G is equalto the number of conjugacy classes of G .
The set of irreducible characters of a given group Ginto a field K form a basis of the K -vector space ofall class functions G → K .
LinearRepresentations of
Finite Groups
William Hargis
RepresentationsTheory
Structures Studied
LinearRepresentations
Character Theory
Characters
Orthogonality ofCharacters
Character Properties
Examples ofCharacters
Cyclic Groups
Examples of Characters
Note: the elements of any group can be partitioned in toconjugacy classes; classes corresponding to the sameconjugate element.
Cl(a) ={b ∈ G |∃g ∈ G with b = gag−1
}(2)
From the definition it follows that Abelian groups have aconjugacy class corresponding to each element.
LinearRepresentations of
Finite Groups
William Hargis
RepresentationsTheory
Structures Studied
LinearRepresentations
Character Theory
Characters
Orthogonality ofCharacters
Character Properties
Examples ofCharacters
Cyclic Groups
Examples: Generalized Cyclic Group Zn
Note: All of Zn’s irreducible characters are linear.
Zn is an additive group where Zn ={
0̄, 1̄, 2̄, ..., ¯n − 1}
with conjugacy classes: {0̄},{1̄},{2̄},...,{ ¯n − 1}.
Let ωn=e2πin be a primitive n root of unity.
(any complex number that gives 1 when raised to apositive integer power)
LinearRepresentations of
Finite Groups
William Hargis
RepresentationsTheory
Structures Studied
LinearRepresentations
Character Theory
Characters
Orthogonality ofCharacters
Character Properties
Examples ofCharacters
Cyclic Groups
Examples: Generalized Cyclic Group Zn
Note: All of Zn’s irreducible characters are linear.
Zn is an additive group where Zn ={
0̄, 1̄, 2̄, ..., ¯n − 1}
with conjugacy classes: {0̄},{1̄},{2̄},...,{ ¯n − 1}.
Let ωn=e2πin be a primitive n root of unity.
(any complex number that gives 1 when raised to apositive integer power)
LinearRepresentations of
Finite Groups
William Hargis
RepresentationsTheory
Structures Studied
LinearRepresentations
Character Theory
Characters
Orthogonality ofCharacters
Character Properties
Examples ofCharacters
Cyclic Groups
Examples: Generalized Cyclic Group Zn
Note: All of Zn’s irreducible characters are linear.
Zn is an additive group where Zn ={
0̄, 1̄, 2̄, ..., ¯n − 1}
with conjugacy classes: {0̄},{1̄},{2̄},...,{ ¯n − 1}.
Let ωn=e2πin be a primitive n root of unity.
(any complex number that gives 1 when raised to apositive integer power)
LinearRepresentations of
Finite Groups
William Hargis
RepresentationsTheory
Structures Studied
LinearRepresentations
Character Theory
Characters
Orthogonality ofCharacters
Character Properties
Examples ofCharacters
Cyclic Groups
Examples: Generalized Cyclic Group Zn
As the number of irreducible characters is equal to thenumber of conjugacy classes, then the number ofirreducible characters of Zn is n.|Irr(Zn)| = n.
Let χ0, χ1, χ2, ..., χn−1 be the n irreducible charactersof Zn then χm(j̄) = ωjm
n
where 0 ≤ j ≤ n − 1 and 0 ≤ m ≤ n − 1.
LinearRepresentations of
Finite Groups
William Hargis
RepresentationsTheory
Structures Studied
LinearRepresentations
Character Theory
Characters
Orthogonality ofCharacters
Character Properties
Examples ofCharacters
Cyclic Groups
Examples: Generalized Cyclic Group Zn
As the number of irreducible characters is equal to thenumber of conjugacy classes, then the number ofirreducible characters of Zn is n.|Irr(Zn)| = n.
Let χ0, χ1, χ2, ..., χn−1 be the n irreducible charactersof Zn then χm(j̄) = ωjm