How statement and proof provenance work
The first chip identifies the source of the statement or construction; the second identifies the source of its local proof or verification.
- Literature-sourced: the exact statement appears in a cited source; only wording and notation differ.
- AI-adapted: a semantically identical restatement of literature-sourced material, modulo indexing, notation, and boundary cases adopted by the library.
- AI-generated: a genuinely novel statement formulated by AI, with no source for the claim itself.
These labels describe origin, not correctness: citations and verification chips remain separate evidence.
Root Systems, Dynkin Diagrams, and the Cartan-Killing Classification
1 · Prerequisites
- Abelian Categories
- Absolute and Conditional Convergence; Rearrangement; Products
- Algebraic Closure, Embeddings, and Separability
- Algebraic Extensions, Extension Degree, and Finite Fields
- Applications of the Fundamental Group
- Binary Operations, Monoids, Groups and Subgroups
- Bounded Linear Operators and Quotient Spaces
- Cartan Subalgebras and Root Space Decompositions
- Categories, Functors and Natural Transformations
- Chain Complexes and Homology
- Chain Conditions, Semisimple Modules and the Wedderburn–Artin Theorem
- Compactness
- Compactness in Metric Spaces
- Completeness, Completion, and Uniform Continuity
- Congruences, the Integers Modulo n and the Chinese Remainder Theorem
- Connectedness
- Constant Rank, Submersions, Immersions and Regular Level Sets
- Construction of the Natural Numbers
- Construction of the Real Numbers via Cauchy Sequences
- Construction of the Real Numbers via Dedekind Cuts
- Continuity, IVT, EVT, and Uniform Continuity
- Cosets, Index and Lagrange's Theorem
- Countability and Uncountability
- Countability Axioms and Cardinal Functions
- Covering Spaces and Lifting
- Cyclic Groups and Direct Products
- Determinants of Matrices over a Commutative Ring
- Diagonalisation and the Minimal Polynomial
- Distributions Integral Manifolds and the Frobenius Theorem
- Divisibility, Euclidean Domains, Principal Ideal Domains and Unique Factorisation
- Divisibility, Greatest Common Divisors and Bézout's Identity
- Dual Spaces, Bilinear and Quadratic Forms, and Sylvester's Law of Inertia
- Eigenvalues, Eigenvectors and the Characteristic Polynomial
- Euclidean Ordinary Differential Equations with Smooth Dependence
- Exterior Powers, Orientation and Hodge Duality
- Filters and Ultrafilters
- Finite Averaging and Character-Theory Prerequisites
- Finite Counting, Factorials and Binomial Coefficients
- Finite Dimensional Normed Spaces and Riesz Lemma
- Formal Power Series
- Foundations of the Real Numbers for Analysis
- Free Modules, Exact Sequences, Projective and Injective Modules
- Fubini and Change of Variables
- Gaussian Elimination, Elementary Matrices and Reduced Row Echelon Form
- Graphs, Walks and Connectivity
- Group Actions, Orbits, Stabilisers and Cayley's Theorem
- Group Homomorphisms and the Isomorphism Theorems
- Hereditary and Productive Behaviour of the Separation Axioms
- Homotopy and Homotopy Equivalence
- Ideals, Quotient Rings and the Isomorphism Theorems for Rings
- Inner Product Spaces, Gram-Schmidt, Projections and Adjoints
- Lie Algebra Representations, Enveloping Algebras, and PBW
- Lie Groups, Invariant Fields, and the Exponential Map
- Lie Subgroups, Actions, and Homogeneous Spaces
- Limits and Colimits
- Limits of Real Functions
- limsup, liminf, and Subsequential Limits
- Linear Independence, Bases and Dimension
- Linear Transformations, Rank-Nullity and Quotient Spaces
- Manifolds with Boundary Collars and Orientations
- Matrices, the Matrix of a Linear Map, and Change of Basis
- Metric Spaces
- Mixed Partials, Taylor Formulae, and Extrema
- Modules, Submodules, Quotient Modules and the Isomorphism Theorems
- Monotone Functions, Discontinuities, and Continuity Sets
- Monotone Sequences, Bolzano-Weierstrass, and Cauchy Completeness
- Noetherian Rings and Hilbert Basis
- Normal Subgroups and Quotient Groups
- Normed and Banach Spaces
- Order, Zorn's Lemma, and the Axiom of Choice
- Ordinals, Cardinals, and Transfinite Recursion
- Partitions of Unity and Paracompactness
- Picard-Lindelöf and First-Order Ordinary Differential Equations
- Polynomial Rings, the Division Algorithm and Roots
- Power Series and Real-Analytic Functions
- Preadditive and Additive Categories and Biproducts
- Primes, Euclid's Lemma and the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic
- Properties of the Integral and the Working FTC
- Rank Theorems and Embedded Submanifolds
- Relations, Functions, and Quotients
- Rings, Subrings, Integral Domains and Fields
- Rⁿ as a Normed Space; Vector-Valued Functions
- Roots, Rational Powers, and Classical Inequalities
- Semisimple Lie Algebras, Cohomology, and Levi Theory
- Separation Axioms: the Hierarchy
- Sequences and Limits
- Sequences and Series of Functions; Uniform Convergence
- Series: Convergence and the Nonnegative Tests
- Simple Field Extensions and the Construction of the Complex Numbers
- Smooth Manifolds and Smooth Maps
- Smooth Partitions of Unity and Exhaustions
- Smooth Vector Bundles and Sections
- Solvable and Nilpotent Lie Algebras
- Splitting Fields
- Subspaces, Products, and Quotients
- Suprema and Infima
- Symmetric Groups, Cycle Decomposition and the Sign Homomorphism
- Tangent Cotangent and the Differential
- Tensor Products of Modules
- The Cantor Set, Baire Category, and Measure Zero in ℝ
- The Derivative and the Mean Value Theorems
- The Determinant of a Linear Operator, Cofactors and Cramer's Rule
- The Exponential Function
- The Fundamental Group
- The Fundamental Theorem of Finite Abelian Groups
- The Fundamental Theorems of Calculus
- The Galois Correspondence
- The Group Algebra and Representations of Finite Groups
- The Inverse and Implicit Function Theorems
- The Inverse Function Theorem Completed
- The Riemann Integral in Rᵐ and Jordan Content
- The Riemann Integral: Definition and Integrability
- The Spectral Theorem, Positive Operators and Singular Value Decomposition
- The Topology of Euclidean Space
- The Total Derivative in ℝᵐ → ℝⁿ
- The ZFC Axioms and the Basic Set Constructions
- Topological Spaces and Continuity
- Topology of ℝ
- Trees, Forests and Spanning Trees
- Triangularisation, Generalised Eigenspaces and Jordan Canonical Form
- Uniform Spaces: the Three Definitions
- Vector Fields Flows and Lie Derivatives
- Vector Spaces, Linear Subspaces, Span and Direct Sums
2 · Summary
This page develops abstract root systems and the Cartan-Killing classification of complex semisimple Lie algebras. It introduces reduced crystallographic root systems, their Weyl groups, positive systems and simple roots, chambers, heights and highest roots, root and weight lattices, Cartan matrices and Dynkin diagrams, and proves the rank-two classification together with the unique irreducible decomposition. The classification of connected finite-type Dynkin diagrams is then completed, every type is realized by explicit Euclidean root systems, and coroot duality is proved to exchange the types and and to fix all others up to isomorphism. The second half constructs the Serre Lie algebra of a finite-type Cartan matrix, proves the Serre presentation theorem via the triangular decomposition, integrable -actions and height induction, and derives the isomorphism theorem, the existence theorem and the Cartan-Killing classification of complex simple Lie algebras, with the classical matrix realizations , , and identified. Remarks and false statements record the limits of the classification: it does not extend to real forms or to connected global Lie groups.
3 · Logical flowchart
4 · Definitions, theorems and proofs
Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system
Definition
Let be a finite-dimensional real inner product space with inner product (Real and complex inner product spaces, with the inner product linear in the first argument), and let be a finite subset which spans over . For define Since for , the scalar is well defined, and substitution gives A reduced crystallographic root system in (equivalently, a reduced abstract root system) is such a pair satisfying:
- for every ;
- for all (the crystallographic, or integrality, condition);
- for every (the reducedness condition).
The elements of are its roots, and is the reflection in the hyperplane orthogonal to : it fixes pointwise and negates .
Every root satisfies : taking in condition 2 gives , and condition 1 gives . The integer is the Cartan integer attached to the ordered pair ; condition 2 is the crystallographic axiom recorded above.
Rank and isomorphism of root systems
Definition
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system (Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system).
Its rank is . Since spans , the rank is determined by ; it is the number of simple roots of any base of .
Let be a second reduced crystallographic root system. An isomorphism of root systems is a linear isomorphism with that preserves every Cartan integer: for all ,
Because a map as above preserves the angle of every pair of nonproportional roots and the ratio of their lengths whenever the two roots lie in the same irreducible component; conversely, a linear isomorphism carrying onto that preserves the angle and the length ratio of every pair of nonproportional roots preserves all Cartan integers and is therefore an isomorphism of root systems. An isomorphism need not preserve the given inner products on the nose, but within each irreducible component it preserves the common scale, hence all angles between roots and all ratios formed by two roots of the same irreducible component; ratios of lengths of roots taken from different irreducible components need not be preserved.
Coroot and dual root system
Definition
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system in the real inner product space (Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system). For put The vector is the coroot of , and the set is the dual root system.
The definitions are well posed because for . Two elementary identities, obtained by substituting the definition and using bilinearity of the inner product, are for all ; in particular , and the Cartan integer equals the inner product . Also is a positive real multiple of , so and .
Weyl group
Definition
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system (Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system) with coroots (Coroot and dual root system). For the associated reflection is which is an orthogonal transformation of with and for . The Weyl group of is the subgroup of the orthogonal group generated by all root reflections.
Since for every by the root-system axioms, every element of permutes . The Weyl group depends on and its inner product; rescaling the inner product does not change it, because the reflections are unchanged.
The Weyl group is finite and faithful
Statement
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system. Then its Weyl group is finite, and the action of on by restriction is faithful: the homomorphism that sends to its restriction to is injective.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A reduced crystallographic root system in a finite-dimensional real inner product space , with reflections and Weyl group .
is finite, spans , and for all (Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system).
The reflection is orthogonal, , and for (Weyl group, Coroot and dual root system).
is the subgroup of generated by the reflections (Weyl group).
Proof
Each generator lies in and satisfies by [L1]. Consequently every , being a finite product of generators and their inverses, restricts to a bijection .
The assignment , , is a group homomorphism: the restriction of a composition of linear maps is the composition of the restrictions. Hence is a subgroup of the finite group .
If then for every ; since spans and is linear, . Thus : the restriction action on the finite set is faithful, and identifies with the finite subgroup . In particular is finite and .
Reducible and irreducible root systems
Definition
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system in the finite-dimensional real inner product space (Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system).
Then is reducible if there are linear subspaces with , , both nonzero, and the union being disjoint. Otherwise is irreducible.
Equivalently, is reducible if it is the disjoint union of two nonempty subsets with , in which case one may take : indeed if then spans and separately, because otherwise a nonzero vector of orthogonal to and to would be orthogonal to all of and hence zero. Consequently both are nonempty, and each of them is itself a reduced crystallographic root system in whose roots are those of lying in .
A one-element root system is impossible: if , reflection in sends to the distinct root , because . The zero vector space carries the empty root system under the stated root-system axioms; it is irreducible by the definition above, since the zero space has no orthogonal direct-sum decomposition into two nonzero subspaces. Every rank-one root system is likewise irreducible.
Unique irreducible decomposition
Statement
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system. Then is the disjoint union of nonempty root systems that are irreducible, pairwise orthogonal, and span as an orthogonal direct sum . More generally, if is any decomposition into pairwise orthogonal root systems spanning pairwise orthogonal subspaces with , then each is a union of some of the , and each is contained in some . If the are also irreducible, deleting their empty terms makes the two decompositions agree up to order. Thus the decomposition into nonempty irreducible components is unique up to order. For and , this is the empty decomposition (); the empty root system remains irreducible under the definition, but is not counted as a component.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A reduced crystallographic root system in the finite-dimensional real inner product space .
is finite, spans , , for all , every Cartan integer is an integer, and (Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system).
is reducible when for an orthogonal direct decomposition with both nonzero, and irreducible otherwise; each part of such a decomposition spans its subspace (Reducible and irreducible root systems).
For a linear subspace with , the set is a reduced crystallographic root system in : it is finite, it, reducedness and integrality are inherited, and for one has because preserves and maps into . (Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system)
Proof
Define a graph with vertex set , two distinct vertices being joined by an edge exactly when . Let be the connected components of , with if is empty, so that and every is nonempty.
If and with , then , since otherwise an edge would join the two vertices and they would lie in one component. Consequently for , and is an orthogonal direct sum.
For uniqueness, let with each a reduced crystallographic root system in , the pairwise orthogonal, and . If and with then because ; hence no edge of joins distinct parts, and each connected component of is contained in a single .
For each one has . Indeed, if then ; if then for every by step 2.1 applied to the components, whence and , contradicting .
Each is a reduced crystallographic root system in : this is [L3] applied to , whose intersection with is by step 3.1, and spans by definition. Moreover is irreducible: if came from an orthogonal decomposition with both summands nonzero, then no edge of would join a vertex in to a vertex in , so the graph restricted to would be disconnected, contradicting that is a component of .
Conversely each is a union of components: if then by the argument of step 3.1 applied inside the subsystem , the whole component of the graph lies in , since a root of nonorthogonal to must lie in (it is orthogonal to every other ). Hence .
Steps 3.1 and 4.1 exhibit as the disjoint union of the irreducible root systems , whose spans are pairwise orthogonal and span ; this is the asserted decomposition.
If each is irreducible, discard all empty (whose spans are zero). Each remaining is by step 4.2 a nonempty union of components, and by step 4.1 each component is irreducible; an irreducible root system cannot be the orthogonal disjoint union of two nonempty root subsystems, so contains exactly one component. Therefore the components are a permutation of the nonempty parts , and the decomposition into nonempty components is unique up to order. If , every is empty and deleting them leaves exactly the empty decomposition with .
Rank-two root-system classification
Statement
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system, and let be nonproportional roots. Write for the two Cartan integers, and let be the angle between and .
(i) . With the possibilities are exactly: and ; and either with or with ; and either with or with ; and and either with or with .
(ii) If then ; if then .
(iii) If are distinct simple roots of relative to some positive system, then and .
(iv) If has dimension two and is a base of , then , so the angle is nonacute: it is one of , , , . The irreducible reduced crystallographic rank-two root systems are exactly (three positive roots), (four positive roots) and (six positive roots), while the reducible case is .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A reduced crystallographic root system in the finite-dimensional real inner product space , nonproportional roots , and the notation , , of the statement.
is finite, spans , , , , and for all roots (Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system).
is orthogonal, equals the identity on , and sends to (Weyl group, Coroot and dual root system).
Cauchy-Schwarz: for all with equality if and only if are linearly dependent (Cauchy–Schwarz: , with equality exactly for linearly dependent vectors).
A reducible rank-two system is the orthogonal disjoint union of root systems spanning pairwise orthogonal subspaces that span , uniquely up to order (Unique irreducible decomposition).
A finite-dimensional vector space over an infinite field is not a finite union of proper linear subspaces (A finite-dimensional vector space over an infinite field is not a finite union of proper subspaces).
Proof
For a linear subspace with , the set is a reduced crystallographic root system in : it is finite, contains no zero vector, inherits integrality and reducedness, and for because preserves and maps into . In particular the plane subsystem is a rank-two reduced crystallographic root system.
Both and are integers, and Since are nonproportional, Cauchy-Schwarz gives , so ; being a product of integers, is a nonnegative integer, hence lies in . If then and both absolute values cannot be at least , since then their product would be at least . Hence ; moreover if and only if , and then , with the same sign, and , because .
Fix a vector with for every , which exists because is finite and is not a finite union of the proper subspaces [L5]. Call positive when and negative otherwise, so that is the disjoint union of its positive and negative roots and the negative roots are the negatives of the positive ones; call a positive root simple when it is not a sum of two positive roots. If a positive root is not simple, write it as a sum of two positive roots; the value of on each summand is strictly smaller than on the sum, so iterating the decomposition and always decomposing a summand that is not simple terminates after finitely many steps (the values of on positive roots form a finite set and strictly decrease along the iteration). The terminal summands are simple, so every positive root is a sum of simple roots.
(Reducible case) If is a reducible rank-two root system then with root systems spanning pairwise orthogonal nonzero subspaces with [L4]; hence , and a rank-one reduced crystallographic root system is for its unique positive root , since every root lies on the line and reducedness excludes proper multiples. Thus the reducible rank-two system is .
With , the identity of step 1.2 enumerates the possibilities. If then and . If the product is then , so , , and if , if . If the product is then , with the same sign, , , and the angle is or according to the sign of . If the product is then , , , and the angle is or .
Assume . Then both Cartan integers are positive, so by step 1.2 the one attached to the longer of the two roots equals : if then and ; if then and , so that . Applying this to gives the companion statement: if then .
If are distinct simple roots and , then by step 2.2, and this root is positive or negative: if it is positive then exhibits as a sum of two positive roots, and if it is negative then exhibits as a sum of two positive roots, contradicting simplicity in either case. Hence . The same reasoning shows , since a root is positive, giving the first contradiction, or negative, giving the second.
(Root strings) Let and with . Then the set of integers with is a nonempty interval of consecutive integers with , , no gaps, and ; moreover . Indeed, the set is nonempty because occurs, and is invariant under because , so it is finite and symmetric about . If it had a gap, there would be with , and ; then , since otherwise step 2.2 applied to would give , and similarly ; subtracting gives , a contradiction. Hence there are no gaps, and the symmetry of an interval about gives . Finally, replacing by reduces to the case and , and by steps 1.2 and 2.1 applied to the nonproportional pair ; if that pair is proportional then reducedness gives at most three elements.
In a rank-two root system the simple roots are linearly independent, hence exactly two; explicitly, if with disjoint finite index sets and positive real coefficients (which is the shape of every nontrivial linear relation), then for one computes because the two index sets are disjoint and distinct simple roots have nonpositive inner product by step 3.1. Therefore the simple roots are independent; since they span by step 1.3, a rank-two system has exactly two simple roots , every root is with integers, and the Cartan matrix is one of because both off-diagonal entries are nonpositive integers whose product is one of .
(Descent and constraints for a base) Let be the simple roots of a rank-two system in the ordering of step 1.3, and let be a positive root, integers. Write and ; both are nonpositive integers with product in by steps 3.1 and 1.2. Then: (a) and , and the reflected roots and again have coefficients of one sign; hence if then , that is , and if then . (b) The string bounds of step 3.2 give and . (c) Reducedness gives: if then , and if then . (d) If and , then the -string through contains , so this vector lies in and ; and if and , then and .
(The three irreducible cases) Let be an irreducible rank-two root system with simple roots and Cartan matrix as in step 4.1; exclude the first matrix, which gives a reducible system by step 1.4 (no positive root has both coefficients nonzero by (a) of step 4.2). For the five remaining cases define Every element of is a root: are simple; , , are the images of under the reflections , and , , are the images of under ; for one has and , and the last case is its mirror image. In each case has , , , , elements and spans .
(Exhaustiveness) In each of the five cases of step 5.1, every positive root lies in . Suppose not, and choose a positive root of least height among the positive roots outside ; it is not simple, so by step 1.3 it is a sum of two positive roots of smaller heights, and by minimality of both summands lie in . Hence is a sum of two elements of , and each such sum is either an element of , or violates one of conditions (a)-(c) of step 4.2, or descends by (d) to such a sum, or is excluded by reducedness [L1]; the following complete lists of the coordinate pairs of the sums of two elements of verify this case by case. For the sums are : and violate (c), violates and violates in (a), and is excluded by reducedness because is a root. For the sums with are : and violate (c), violates and violates in (a), and are excluded by reducedness, and satisfies (a)-(c) but (d) applied to gives , already excluded. The case is the mirror image with the two coordinates and the two simple roots interchanged. For the sums of two elements of are : and violate (c), violates and violates in (a), and violate in (b), , , and are excluded by reducedness because and lie in and are roots, descends by (d) applied to to , and and descend by (d) applied to to and , all already excluded, while lie in . The mirror case is handled by the same interchange of coordinates and simple roots. Thus no positive root lies outside , so in each of the five cases, and the irreducible rank-two root systems are exactly the systems with , , , , positive roots.
The systems of 3, 4 and 6 positive roots are the root systems traditionally called , and : for the roots are with and angle ; for they are with and angle ; and for they are the six positive roots listed in with and angle . The two middle cases are isomorphic as root systems: the linear map that rotates the plane by and then rescales uniformly sends the four short root directions and the four long root directions of the system onto those of the system, and Cartan integers are unchanged by a uniform rescaling. Combining with steps 2.1, 3.1, 1.4 and 6.1 gives the full rank-two classification, and the angle statement of (iv) is step 3.1.
Positive systems and simple roots
Definition
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system (Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system). A vector is regular (for ) if for every ; such vectors exist because is finite, the finitely many hyperplanes are proper subspaces of the finite-dimensional real vector space , and is not the union of finitely many proper subspaces (A finite-dimensional vector space over an infinite field is not a finite union of proper subspaces).
Fix a regular . A root is positive (with respect to ) if , and negative if . Write so that and ; every root is positive or negative, since is regular. A positive root is simple if it is not a sum of two positive roots ; we write for the set of simple roots.
The set depends on the choice of the regular vector ; the subsequent theorem proves that is a basis of and that every root is an integral combination of whose nonzero coefficients all have one sign.
Simple roots form a signed integral basis
Statement
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system with positive system and simple roots (Positive systems and simple roots). Then is a basis of ; more precisely:
- is linearly independent and spans , so ;
- every positive root is a sum of simple roots with nonnegative integer coefficients, and every negative root is a sum of simple roots with nonpositive integer coefficients.
Consequently every root is a unique integral combination of the simple roots in which the nonzero coefficients all have the same sign, positive for positive roots and negative for negative roots.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A reduced crystallographic root system with a regular vector , the positive system , and the set of simple roots, a root being simple when it is not a sum of two positive roots.
is finite, spans , , , all Cartan integers are integral, and (Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system).
and are disjoint and cover ; a positive root is simple when it is not a sum of two positive roots (Positive systems and simple roots).
If are nonproportional roots with then (Rank-two root-system classification).
Proof
Every positive root is a nonnegative integral sum of simple roots: if is not simple, it is a sum of two positive roots, and are positive and add up to ; iterating this decomposition and always choosing a summand that is not simple cannot continue forever, since the finitely many values , , strictly decrease along each branch, so the process terminates and exhibits as a sum of simple roots.
Distinct simple roots satisfy . Indeed, if then by [L3]; this root is positive or negative, and if it is positive then is a nontrivial sum of two positive roots, while if it is negative then is a nontrivial sum of two positive roots, contradicting the simplicity of or of .
The simple roots are linearly independent. Suppose with disjoint nonempty index sets and all ; this is the shape of every nontrivial real linear relation, after moving negative coefficients to the other side. The common vector is nonzero, so ; on the other hand, expanding one side against the other gives , because and distinct simple roots have nonpositive inner product by step 1.2. This contradiction shows all coefficients vanish, so is linearly independent.
The simple roots span : every root is a simple-root combination by step 1.1 or its negative, and spans . Together with step 2.1 the set is a basis of , and with step 1.1 every root is an integral combination whose coefficients all have the sign of the root. Uniqueness of the coefficients is basis uniqueness, and no choice-theoretic input is used.
Distinct simple roots have nonpositive inner product
Statement
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system with positive system and simple roots (Positive systems and simple roots). If are distinct, then ; moreover is not a root.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: Distinct simple roots of a reduced crystallographic root system with positive system .
A simple root is a positive root that is not a sum of two positive roots; and partition (Positive systems and simple roots).
If are nonproportional with then (Rank-two root-system classification).
Proof
Assume . Then by [L2], and since is the disjoint union of its positive and negative roots, is either positive or negative.
The two alternatives of step 1.1 are impossible: if is positive, then exhibits the simple root as a sum of two positive roots; if is negative, then exhibits the simple root as a sum of two positive roots.
Hence . If were a root, the same dichotomy would apply verbatim and contradict simplicity, so .
Height and highest root
Definition
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system with a chosen positive system and base of simple roots (Positive systems and simple roots). By Simple roots form a signed integral basis every root is a unique integral combination of whose nonzero coefficients all have one sign.
For the height of is This is well defined because the simple roots form a basis, and simple roots are exactly the roots of height one. The root order on is defined by It restricts to a partial order on the positive roots, in which every comparison chain is finite because heights strictly increase. A positive root is a highest root if it is maximal for this order, that is, if for no positive root . The existence and uniqueness of a highest root for an irreducible system are proved in Existence and uniqueness of the highest root.
Existence and uniqueness of the highest root
Statement
Let be a nonempty irreducible reduced crystallographic finite root system with a chosen positive system and base (Positive systems and simple roots). Then has a unique highest root relative to this base (Height and highest root): a positive root such that for no positive root . Moreover is dominant: for every positive root .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A nonempty irreducible reduced crystallographic root system with positive system , base , height function and root order.
is finite and spans ; ; the Cartan integers are integral, reflections preserve , and the only proportional roots on a root line are a root and its negative (Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system).
is a basis of , every root is a unique integral combination of whose nonzero coefficients have one sign, positive roots have nonnegative coefficients, and means is a nonnegative integral combination of simple roots (Simple roots form a signed integral basis, Height and highest root).
If are nonproportional and then ; if then (Rank-two root-system classification).
Distinct simple roots satisfy (Distinct simple roots have nonpositive inner product).
An irreducible root system admits no decomposition into two orthogonal nonempty parts spanning nonzero orthogonal subspaces that span ; the decomposition into nonempty pairwise orthogonal irreducible root systems is unique (Reducible and irreducible root systems, Unique irreducible decomposition).
Proof
The set is finite and nonempty: since is nonempty, choose a root and its negative, exactly one of which is positive. Hence the root order is a partial order, and a comparison chain of positive roots is finite because heights strictly increase along it; hence has a maximal element , i.e. a positive root such that for no positive root .
Let be the subgroup of the orthogonal group generated by the simple reflections; every root is in its orbit of a simple root. The generators are for . Let , , be a positive root that is not simple. Then produces an index with ; put , so that the reflected root lies in by [L1]. Its simple-root coordinates are those of except the -th, which is . If , the one-sign assertion of [L2] forces every other coordinate, which is unchanged and nonnegative, to vanish. Thus is a negative multiple of , hence equal to by the reducedness clause of [L1]; applying again would then give , contrary to the choice of . Therefore is a positive root, of height . Iterating this strict descent, which stays at height while the root is positive, must end at a simple root, since the argument would strictly lower the height of any nonsimple positive root; a simple root has height . Hence for a simple root and a product of simple reflections. Negative roots are negatives of positive ones, and .
The maximal root is dominant: for every simple root . Indeed, if , then the positive roots cannot be proportional: reducedness would force equality, giving a positive pairing. Thus by [L3] applied to the nonproportional pair ; this root is positive (a sum of positive roots) and because the difference is the simple root , contradicting maximality of .
The Dynkin diagram of , with vertices and an edge between when , is connected. Otherwise with for all , ; then each , , fixes every , , and vice versa, so the subgroup generated by the two families is their commuting product and by step 1.2; the spans of and are nonzero, orthogonal, and span , so would be reducible, contradicting [L5].
The support of is all of : write with . If for some , then by step 2.1 and [L4] , so for every with , that is, no vertex outside the nonempty support of is adjacent in the diagram to any vertex of the support; this contradicts the connectedness of step 2.2.
At least one simple root pairs strictly positively with . Indeed step 3.1 writes with every , while step 2.1 gives for every . Since not all these nonnegative pairings can vanish.
Uniqueness: let be a second highest root. Steps 2.1 through 3.1 apply equally to , so with every . Together with steps 2.1 and 4.1 this gives If and were proportional, reducedness and positivity would already force . Otherwise [L3] gives ; this root is positive, in which case and is not maximal, or negative, in which case and is not maximal. Both alternatives are impossible, so .
The dominance statement for all positive roots follows because whenever is positive with , using step 2.1. Every positive root lies below a maximal root by finiteness; uniqueness makes that maximal root , so is also the greatest positive root. In rank one , and . The empty system in remains irreducible under the library definition but is expressly excluded here; it has no highest root. Dominance need not be strict on every simple root: in , pairs to zero with . This completes the proof.
Root, coroot, weight, and coweight lattices
Definition
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system with base (Positive systems and simple roots, Simple roots form a signed integral basis) and coroots (Coroot and dual root system). The root lattice, coroot lattice, weight lattice, and coweight lattice are All four sets are additive subgroups of , since the integrality conditions are preserved by addition and negation; they are free abelian groups of rank , for and because the simple roots and the simple coroots are bases of , and for and because the simple coroots are again a basis so the dual lattice is generated by the dual basis. The chain holds because the Cartan integers are integers for all roots (Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system).
Fundamental weights
Definition
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system with simple roots (Positive systems and simple roots) and lattices (Root, coroot, weight, and coweight lattices). The fundamental weights are the vectors of dual to the simple coroots: They are well defined and unique because the form a basis of , the inner product is nondegenerate, and the linear functionals extend uniquely. The fundamental weights form a basis of , called the fundamental weight basis: indeed shows , and for the coefficients in are integers, so . Symmetrically, the fundamental coweights , dual to the simple roots, form a basis of .
Open and closed Weyl chambers
Definition
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system (Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system). For a root the root hyperplane is . The complement is a finite union of open convex cones, and its connected components are the open Weyl chambers of . Each chamber is open and convex. A root hyperplane is a wall of a chamber when contains a nonempty relatively open subset of —equivalently, when it is the supporting hyperplane of a codimension-one face of . In rank at least two, merely meeting the boundary at the common vertex does not make a root hyperplane a wall. Every chamber is the set of solutions of a system of strict homogeneous linear inequalities .
Fix a positive system with simple roots (Positive systems and simple roots). The fundamental chamber is and its closure is defined by the same inequalities with in place of . The set is a chamber because it is a nonempty open convex cone on which no root vanishes: a positive root is a nonnegative integral combination of the (Simple roots form a signed integral basis), so for and every positive root . The Weyl group (Weyl group) permutes the root hyperplanes and therefore permutes the open chambers; each sends the closure of a chamber to the closure of its image chamber.
Simple transitivity on Weyl chambers
Statement
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system and let be its Weyl group (Weyl group). Then acts simply transitively on the set of open Weyl chambers of (Open and closed Weyl chambers): for any two open chambers there is exactly one with .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A reduced crystallographic root system , a positive system with base , and its fundamental open chamber .
Root reflections preserve , are orthogonal involutions, and generate the finite group (Weyl group, The Weyl group is finite and faithful, Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system).
The simple roots form a basis; every root has integral coordinates all of one sign in that basis, and the positive roots have nonnegative coordinates (Simple roots form a signed integral basis, Positive systems and simple roots).
Chambers are the nonempty regions of constant signs of all root pairings. They are connected components of the root-hyperplane complement. The fundamental chamber is ; every positive root pairs positively there. The Weyl group permutes chambers (Open and closed Weyl chambers).
Proof
Write . If is a positive root other than , reducedness and [F2] imply that some coefficient of at an with is positive. Reflection changes only the coefficient; hence , which is a root, still has a positive coefficient and so has all coefficients nonnegative by [F2]. Thus permutes and sends to . Consequently and have opposite signs only on the root hyperplane , using .
Choose . For any regular (a point in a chamber), the finite orbit has a point maximizing . If , then contradicting maximality. Regularity excludes zero pairings, so all and . Since permutes chambers and , the element sends the chamber of onto . Thus the action on chambers is transitive. This chooses one maximum in a finite set, not a choice function on an arbitrary family.
Every positive root is carried to a simple root by a product of simple reflections. Indeed, if is positive and nonsimple, then gives an with . By step 1.1 the root is positive, and its height (the sum of its nonnegative integer coefficients) is strictly smaller: the decrease is the positive integer . Repetition terminates because height is a positive integer, and a terminal root must be simple. Negative roots have the same reflections as their positives. Orthogonality gives by the reflection formula, so every root reflection is a conjugate, by a word in simple reflections, of a simple reflection. Hence simple reflections generate .
Let be an expression with the smallest possible number of simple factors, which exists by step 2.1 and the well-ordering of the nonnegative integers. Put , , , and . Step 1.1 shows that and have opposite signs only across . No two can coincide. To prove this, if for , their orthogonal reflections are equal. Write , , and (the identity if ). Conjugating the equality by gives . Multiplying gives . Thus the two factors at positions can be deleted without changing , contradicting minimality.
If and , then the sign across changes at the first transition of the chain in step 3.1 and must change back before its last chamber, since the endpoints coincide. Each transition changes exactly the sign of its own , so for some , contrary to step 3.1. Therefore and . This proves triviality of the stabilizer of , without identifying a word from its chamber image.
Transitivity makes every chamber stabilizer conjugate to the trivial stabilizer of . Hence if , then stabilizes , giving ; existence follows from step 1.2. If , the spanning axiom gives , and the sole chamber is , so the conclusion also holds. In rank one the two half-lines are interchanged by the single reflection, consistently with the argument.
Positive systems, bases, and chambers
Statement
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system. The assignment to an open Weyl chamber of the set of roots positive on and the assignment to a positive system of the chamber are mutually inverse bijections between the open chambers and the positive systems of . Consequently positive systems, bases, and chambers are in bijection, and the Weyl group acts simply transitively on each of these three sets.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A reduced crystallographic root system with Weyl group , its open chambers, and its positive systems.
A chamber is a connected component of the complement of the finitely many root hyperplanes ; it is an open convex cone, and for a root the sign of is constant on (Open and closed Weyl chambers).
A positive system is a set defined by a regular vector , its simple roots are the indecomposable elements, and they form a basis whose nonnegative integral combinations give exactly the positive roots (Positive systems and simple roots, Simple roots form a signed integral basis).
acts simply transitively on the open chambers (Simple transitivity on Weyl chambers).
Proof
Each chamber determines a positive system: by [L1] the sign of is constant on , so the set is well defined independently of the chosen ; it contains exactly one of , hence arises from any viewed as a regular vector via the inner product, and is a positive system in the sense of [L2].
Conversely each positive system determines a chamber : it is nonempty because it contains the regular vector defining ; it is an open convex cone defined by finitely many strict linear inequalities, hence is contained in a single chamber; and it equals that chamber because no root changes sign strictly inside it and every boundary point lies in some root hyperplane.
Positive systems correspond bijectively to their simple-root bases: a base determines the positive system , and the positive system determines the base as its indecomposable elements, by [L2]; these are inverse constructions.
The two assignments are inverse: because the roots positive on are exactly those in , one sign being constant on the cone; and because both are open convex sets defined by the same sign conditions and the sign pattern determines the chamber.
The Weyl group acts on chambers, hence by steps 1.1 and 2.1 on positive systems and bases, and the action is simply transitive by [L3]. Explicitly, and a chamber has a unique Weyl image, so each positive system and base has exactly one Weyl translate, giving simple transitivity on all three sets.
Length and longest Weyl-group element
Definition
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system with positive system and simple roots (Positive systems and simple roots), and let be its Weyl group (Weyl group). For define the inversion set and the length , the number of positive roots sent by to negative roots.
A longest element of is an element with for all . The next proposition identifies with the minimum length of an expression of as a product of simple reflections , and proves that a longest element exists, is unique, and is characterized by ; its length is . The length depends on the chosen positive system, hence on the chamber; replacing by replaces the length function by with respect to the new positive system.
Weyl length equals inversion number
Statement
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system with positive system , simple roots and Weyl group , with inversion sets and lengths (Length and longest Weyl-group element). Then:
- for every , the length equals the minimum number of simple reflections occurring in an expression of as a product of simple reflections;
- there is a unique longest element ; it satisfies and .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A reduced crystallographic root system with positive system , simple roots , simple reflections , Weyl group , inversion sets and lengths.
The chambers are the connected components of the complement of the root hyperplanes; acts simply transitively on them; each chamber has exactly walls, and the walls of are the hyperplanes (Open and closed Weyl chambers, Simple transitivity on Weyl chambers).
A positive-root hyperplane separates from exactly when , so the number of separating hyperplanes is ; here is a bijection from to . The negative chamber is (Length and longest Weyl-group element, Open and closed Weyl chambers).
Every positive root is a nonnegative integral combination of the simple roots, and every root is such a combination (Simple roots form a signed integral basis).
Proof
A generic segment from a point of to a point of meets exactly the hyperplanes separating the two chambers, each once, and produces a chain . Inductively, if , the crossed wall is for some simple root , and the adjacent chamber is . Thus for ; simple transitivity and give , while [L3] gives . Conversely, given any expression , the chain crosses one wall at each step, so at most hyperplanes separate its endpoints and . Hence is the minimum number of simple reflections in an expression of .
The simple transitivity of on chambers applied to the pair gives a unique element with .
For every positive root , is negative: if then and ; a root satisfying for all is negative, because writing with gives and hence by [L4] and the definition of . Hence ; since is a bijection of the finite set and , equality holds, , and .
Every satisfies , hence ; so is a longest element. If is also longest then forces , that is ; then for every and every positive root one has , because and has negative inner product with every negative root; hence , that is ; simple transitivity of on chambers then gives , so the longest element is unique.
Cartan matrix of a based root system
Definition
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system with base (Positive systems and simple roots) and coroots (Coroot and dual root system). The Cartan matrix of relative to is the matrix with rows indexed by coroots, Thus is the Cartan integer of the ordered pair , that is, the coefficient of subtracted from in the reflection ; it is not in general an eigenvalue of . All entries are integers by the root-system axioms, for every , and for (Distinct simple roots have nonpositive inner product). The Cartan matrix depends on the numbering of the simple roots: renumbering conjugates it by the corresponding permutation matrix. The indexing convention here is the row-coroot convention: the entries of row record the action of the coroot on the other simple roots.
Properties of finite-type Cartan matrices
Statement
Let be the Cartan matrix of a reduced crystallographic root system relative to a base (Cartan matrix of a based root system). Then:
- for all , and is a nonpositive integer for ;
- if and only if ;
- for ;
- there is a diagonal matrix with positive diagonal entries such that is symmetric and positive definite.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A reduced crystallographic root system with base , base entries , and the inner product on .
and is an integer (Cartan matrix of a based root system, Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system).
For distinct simple roots, (Distinct simple roots have nonpositive inner product).
For nonproportional roots the product of Cartan integers is and the angle is , , or (Rank-two root-system classification).
The simple roots form a basis of , so their Gram matrix is symmetric and positive definite, and any symmetric matrix representing the inner product in a basis is positive definite (Simple roots form a signed integral basis).
Proof
and ; for one has because by [L2] and .
if and only if : both entries are nonzero exactly when , since the denominators are positive.
For , the simple roots are nonproportional, so by [L3], giving the third assertion.
Let ; then has entries , which is symmetric in because the inner product is symmetric.
The matrix in step 1.4 is positive definite: it is twice the Gram matrix of the normalized simple roots, and those vectors are a basis of , so their Gram matrix is positive definite by [L4]. Discarding the factor preserves positive definiteness.
Dynkin diagram with edge multiplicity and arrow convention
Definition
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system with base and Cartan matrix (Properties of finite-type Cartan matrices). The Dynkin diagram of relative to is the graph with vertex set , with edges joining the vertices and for , and with a decoration of the edges when : if no decoration is used; if the two parallel edges carry a single arrow pointing from the longer root to the shorter root, that is, toward the vertex with ; if the three parallel edges carry the same arrow toward the shorter root. The numbers are determined by the Cartan matrix and the arrow direction is determined by which of is larger in absolute value, since whenever (Rank-two root-system classification); hence the diagram, with its multiplicities and arrows, is determined by . Isolated vertices, that is, simple roots orthogonal to all others, are allowed and correspond to one-dimensional direct summands.
Conversely the Cartan matrix is recovered from the diagram: a pair with no edge has ; a pair joined by edges has with product , and the arrow, which records which of is larger, fixes and uniquely.
The Cartan matrix determines a based root system
Statement
Let and be reduced crystallographic root systems with bases and and Cartan matrices and (Cartan matrix of a based root system). If then the linear map with for all is an isomorphism of root systems; in particular .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: Based reduced crystallographic root systems and with the same Cartan matrix , and the linear map sending to .
and are bases of and , and every root is a unique integral combination of its base with coefficients of one sign (Simple roots form a signed integral basis, Positive systems and simple roots).
, and the same formula with primes holds in because (Cartan matrix of a based root system).
The Gram matrix of the simple roots satisfies , and is positive definite; the numbers determine up to one positive scalar on each connected component of the graph with edges (Properties of finite-type Cartan matrices).
Proof
Every root of is Weyl-conjugate to a simple root. Indeed, let be positive and not simple. Since , some satisfies . Put . Crystallographic integrality gives , and reflection invariance gives . Its height is . It cannot be negative: if it were, then all its simple-root coefficients would be nonpositive by [L1], whereas its coefficient at every is ; hence all for would vanish, making a positive scalar multiple of , and reducedness would force , contrary to assumption. Thus successive simple reflections strictly lower positive height until a simple root is reached. Inverting those reflections proves the claim.
With the row index first and column index second, the matrix of in the basis has entries by [L2]; it is therefore determined by , and the corresponding matrix for in the basis is the same. Hence for all , because both sides are linear and agree on the basis : .
Consequently carries the Weyl orbit of onto the Weyl orbit of , and by step 1.1 (applied to and to ) it carries onto ; in particular is a linear isomorphism, since it maps the basis onto the basis .
It remains to check that preserves Cartan integers. By [L3] the Gram matrices and satisfy and are positive definite; for indices joined by an edge one has and , so ; by connectivity along edges the ratios are constant on each connected component of the graph on with edges . Define a second inner product on by . Its Gram matrix in the basis is , which differs from by a positive scalar on each connected component; therefore for roots of the Cartan integers computed with and with agree, because scaling an inner product on a component by multiplies both and by when lie in that component and gives otherwise. Since by step 2.1, is an isomorphism of root systems.
Irreducibility and connected Dynkin diagrams
Statement
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system with base and Dynkin diagram (Dynkin diagram with edge multiplicity and arrow convention). Then is irreducible (Reducible and irreducible root systems) if and only if is empty or connected. In particular, for a nonempty root system irreducibility is equivalent to connectedness of the diagram. The empty alternative follows the local convention that the rank-zero root system is irreducible.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A reduced crystallographic root system with base and its Dynkin diagram , whose vertex set is and in which are joined exactly when .
is the disjoint union of irreducible root systems spanning pairwise orthogonal nonzero subspaces, and this decomposition is unique up to order for its nonempty components (Unique irreducible decomposition, Reducible and irreducible root systems).
The simple roots form a basis of ; every root is an integral combination of simple roots with all nonzero coefficients of one sign (Simple roots form a signed integral basis).
The Cartan matrix entry vanishes exactly when (Cartan matrix of a based root system).
A positive root is simple exactly when it is not a sum of two positive roots; every root reflection preserves (Positive systems and simple roots, Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system).
Proof
Suppose first that . If is disconnected, partition its vertices as into two nonempty unions of connected components. Then by [L3], and , are nonzero orthogonal subspaces with by [L2]. Every root has support in just one side. Otherwise, after replacing a root by its negative if necessary, choose a positive root of least height whose support meets both and . It is not simple, so [L4] writes for positive roots . Minimality makes each summand supported on one side, and because is mixed they lie on opposite sides; hence . Reflection in then gives but has nonzero simple-root coefficients of both signs, contradicting [L2]. Thus is an orthogonal splitting with both parts nonempty, and is reducible.
If is reducible, write as an orthogonal union of nonempty subsystems spanning orthogonal nonzero subspaces by [L1]. Put . Every simple root belongs to exactly one , so . Each is nonempty: choose a positive root and expand it in the basis using [L2]; orthogonal projection to the other component, together with linear independence of the simple roots there, forces all coefficients from to vanish, while leaves a coefficient from . Since , no edge of joins to , and is disconnected.
For , steps 1.1 and 1.2 prove the two implications by contraposition, so irreducibility is equivalent to connectedness of . For , the spanning axiom gives and the base and diagram are empty; the zero space has no splitting into two nonzero subspaces, so this root system is irreducible by [L1]. Conversely an empty diagram gives by [L2], hence . Thus in all ranks irreducibility is equivalent to the diagram being empty or connected.
Shape restrictions on Dynkin diagrams
Statement
Let be an irreducible reduced crystallographic root system with connected Dynkin diagram (Dynkin diagram with edge multiplicity and arrow convention). Then:
- the underlying unoriented simple graph of is a tree;
- no vertex is adjacent to more than three other vertices;
- at most one vertex is adjacent to three other vertices;
- in the simply-laced case (all edges simple) with exactly one trivalent vertex, if are the numbers of edges in the three arms and , then ;
- if has a multiple edge, its underlying graph is a path; positivity permits only a double edge at an end of the path, a double edge in the middle of a four-vertex path, or a two-vertex triple edge.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A finite-type Cartan matrix of an irreducible based root system as in the statement, with , , , for , and a diagonal matrix , , with where is symmetric positive definite.
These are the properties of a finite-type Cartan matrix, and , for adjacent , and otherwise (Properties of finite-type Cartan matrices).
For every nonzero real vector of finite support one has ; equivalently , where the sum runs over unordered adjacent pairs. In particular for , because for adjacent pairs. (Properties of finite-type Cartan matrices)
The diagram is connected, with vertex set , and are adjacent exactly when (Irreducibility and connected Dynkin diagrams, Dynkin diagram with edge multiplicity and arrow convention).
A finite connected graph is a tree exactly when it has no cycle, and then it has edges and a unique path between any two vertices; in a simply-laced diagram the inner product of adjacent simple roots is when both roots have the same length (Equivalent characterisations of a nonempty tree by unique paths, edge count, minimal connectivity and maximal acyclicity, Rank-two root-system classification).
Proof
The graph has no cycle: if with formed a cycle, set and otherwise; then and the adjacency sum equals , since each of the cycle edges contributes , so , contradicting [L2] (a multiple edge in the cycle only increases the right side). Since the graph is connected by [L3], it is a tree by [L4].
No vertex has four neighbours: if had distinct neighbours , set , and otherwise; then and the four edges at contribute at least , so , contradicting [L2].
(Simply-laced trivalent case.) Suppose all edges are simple and is the unique trivalent vertex, its arms having edges with ; all simple roots then have a common squared length by [L4], and adjacent simple roots have inner product . Let , where are the roots of the first arm ordered from its free end toward , and define similarly for the other two arms; the three vectors are mutually orthogonal because their supports are disjoint, and direct expansion using the adjacent inner products gives , , and , with the analogous formulas for . The set is orthogonal, and is not in its span (the supports are disjoint from ), so Bessel's inequality with the nonzero residual component gives ; dividing by and multiplying by gives , that is .
(Path with a unique double edge.) Suppose the underlying graph is a path with exactly one multiple edge, that edge is double, and its deletion splits the vertices into arms of and vertices. Every edge within either arm is then simple, so the roots on an arm have one common length by [L4]. Let , with the vertices ordered from the free ends toward the double edge. From the double edge one has , so , while the simple-arm expansions give , and . Substituting into the strict Schwarz inequality for the nonproportional vectors gives , hence and . Therefore either or , giving a double edge at an end of the path, or , giving a four-vertex path with central double edge.
At most one vertex is trivalent: if both had degree at least three, let be the unique path between them (existing by step 1.1 and [L4]) and set at the path vertices and at every other neighbour of or ; the numbers and of such extra neighbours satisfy and (the path edges contribute each, the edges from to the extra neighbours contribute each, and the edge , when , contributes ), so because ; this contradicts [L2].
(Multiple edges and the conclusion.) First exclude two multiple edges. If had two multiple edges, choose such a pair joined by a path with the fewest edges; every internal edge of that path is then simple, by minimality. Label only the vertices of that path and give to every other vertex: every edge of not on the path then has a vertex labelled and contributes nothing to either side, so a violation of [L2] on the labelled sub-path is a violation for . Let the path be , with the multiple edges and and with . If , take , when both factors are , and at all three vertices as soon as one factor is . If , take , at the remaining path vertices when both factors are , and at all path vertices as soon as one factor is . In the two double-edge cases both sides of [L2] equal (with in the first case), and in the mixed and triple cases ; either way [L2] fails for a nonzero label vector. Hence has at most one multiple edge. If has a multiple edge and is not a path, then it has exactly one trivalent vertex by steps 1.1, 1.2 and 2.1, and the path to the endpoint of that edge consists of simple edges. Label , at the two neighbours of outside that path, for , , and at every other vertex. Then and with , so the difference of the two sides is ; this vanishes at for and equals at for . Again [L2] fails, so is a path. Finally, a path with a multiple edge has exactly one such edge. If its multiplicity is and the path has a third vertex adjacent to the triple edge, the label vector on the far endpoint of the triple edge, its other endpoint and that third vertex satisfies , contradicting [L2]; so a triple edge fills the whole path, which is then the two-vertex system . If the multiple edge is double, step 1.4 gives for the two arms of and vertices, so either one arm is a single vertex (a double edge at an end of the path) or (a four-vertex path with central double edge). This completes the verification of all five assertions.
Classification of irreducible root systems
Statement
Let be an irreducible reduced crystallographic root system (Reducible and irreducible root systems). If is empty, its ambient space is zero; this is irreducible under the local convention. Otherwise is isomorphic, as a root system, to exactly one of with the low-rank identifications , , and , where the subscript denotes the number of simple roots. Here is the type whose Dynkin diagram is a path on vertices with simple edges, and have path diagrams differing by the direction of the arrow on the double edge, is the simply-laced trivalent diagram with arms of lengths , and have, respectively, simply-laced trivalent arms , , ; a four-vertex path with central double edge; and two vertices joined by a triple edge. Type names here specify these diagram types; their coordinate realizations are constructed in the following existence theorem.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A nonempty irreducible reduced crystallographic root system with base and Dynkin diagram .
is connected, and its underlying simple graph is a tree with at most one trivalent vertex and maximum degree at most three; in the simply-laced trivalent case with arms and one has ; if has a multiple edge its underlying graph is a path, with the double edge at an end, a central double edge on four vertices, or a two-vertex triple edge (Shape restrictions on Dynkin diagrams, Irreducibility and connected Dynkin diagrams).
A based root system is determined up to isomorphism by its Cartan matrix, and its Cartan matrix is determined by its Dynkin diagram (The Cartan matrix determines a based root system, Dynkin diagram with edge multiplicity and arrow convention).
For a double edge the squared-length ratio (long to short) of the two simple roots is , and for a triple edge it is ; the arrow points to the shorter root (Rank-two root-system classification, Dynkin diagram with edge multiplicity and arrow convention).
A root-system isomorphism is linear, carries the root set onto the root set, and preserves every Cartan integer; every root has signed integral coordinates in a base, and the Weyl group acts transitively on the bases of a root system (Rank and isomorphism of root systems, Simple roots form a signed integral basis, Positive systems, bases, and chambers).
Roots are nonzero and span the ambient space; root reflections preserve the root set and Cartan integers are integral (Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system). The local definition allows the empty root system and calls it irreducible (Reducible and irreducible root systems).
Proof
Suppose first that all edges of are simple and there is no trivalent vertex. Then by [L1] the graph is a path on vertices, and the Cartan matrix is the matrix , , for ; the corresponding root system is .
If is simply laced with exactly one trivalent vertex, write its arms as edges with ; by [L1] . If then , so ; then , so : for every occurs, giving the diagrams with arms , and for the condition gives , the diagrams . No other simply-laced trivalent diagrams occur.
If has a multiple edge, then by [L1] its underlying graph is a path and the possibilities are: a double edge at an end, which gives the two orientation choices and on vertices (the double edge being the end edge of the path); a central double edge on exactly four vertices, which is ; or a two-vertex triple edge, which is .
The diagram types are distinguished by rank, edge multiplicities and positions, and, for a simply-laced branch, the unordered arm lengths. At rank the arms differ from the exceptional arms, which all have just one arm of length . Reversing the path interchanges the two orientations for and for , so these introduce no extra types. To check unbased uniqueness it remains to explain why isomorphisms preserve diagram types. In particular and for are non-isomorphic even as unbased root systems. If an isomorphism existed, the image of a chosen base would be a base. Indeed it is a basis of roots, every root has integral coefficients of one sign relative to it because this is true relative to and is linear, and a vector pairing positively with every member of therefore defines the corresponding positive system, whose indecomposable roots are precisely those basis vectors. By [L4] a Weyl element of carries to the standard base . After ordering the bases, the composite based isomorphism would identify their Cartan matrices up to a simultaneous row-and-column permutation, because it preserves every Cartan integer. But for the and matrices are transposes and no vertex permutation identifies them: the unique double edge fixes its end of the path, while its arrow is reversed. This contradiction proves non-isomorphism. For the two orientations of the single double edge are interchanged by permuting the two vertices, so [L2] gives ; and for the unique reduced rank-one system is simultaneously , and .
For the low-rank coincidences, use the coordinate set at . These are root systems: a reflection in exchanges coordinates , and one in exchanges them and negates both, preserving this set. Every root has squared norm , pairwise inner products are integers, reducedness is immediate, and the displayed roots span. For put , , . Its roots are exactly the positives and negatives of The vector pairs positively with all three basis vectors, and this list shows they are exactly the simple positive roots. Their squared lengths are , with and , so the diagram is the three-vertex path , giving by [L2]. In , the two root lines generated by and are orthogonal, each containing just a pair of opposite roots, giving . In particular arms describe , not .
Combining steps 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3, every irreducible system has one of the listed diagrams, and by [L2] its isomorphism class is determined by the Cartan matrix, hence by that diagram; so the classification list is complete, and steps 1.4–1.5 give the stated low-rank coincidences and uniqueness. Finally, if then by [L5], and no decomposition into two nonzero orthogonal spaces exists, so it is the additional irreducible rank-zero case under the local definition. It is not one of the positive-rank types in the display.
Existence of each classified root system
Statement
Every type of the classification list of Classification of irreducible root systems is realized by a reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system with the indicated Dynkin diagram: for every there are root systems in Euclidean space, and there are root systems whose Dynkin diagrams are the diagrams of the classification list.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The standard Euclidean spaces with their standard inner products, unit coordinate vectors , and the classification list with its diagram conventions.
A reduced crystallographic root system is a finite spanning set of nonzero vectors with , integral Cartan integers , and (Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system). For a positive system, its simple roots form a basis and every root has integral coordinates of one sign in that basis (Simple roots form a signed integral basis); their Cartan matrix determines the Dynkin diagram (Dynkin diagram with edge multiplicity and arrow convention).
Every nonempty irreducible root system has one of the listed diagram types, and each diagram type determines its isomorphism class (Classification of irreducible root systems). In particular, isomorphic root systems have the same number of roots.
Reducibility means a partition into two nonempty mutually orthogonal root subsets (Reducible and irreducible root systems). Thus roots joined by a chain of nonzero inner products must belong to the same part of any such partition.
Proof
(Type .) In put ; it is finite, nonempty, spans , and contains no zero vector. For the reflection sends to , to and fixes every other coordinate vector, so it permutes and ; the Cartan integers are . For the regular functional , the positive roots are with ; each is , and only the adjacent differences are indecomposable. Thus the simple roots are for , whose Cartan matrix is .
(Types and .) In put and . Both are finite, span , omit , and are reduced. Reflections: negates the -th coordinate, does the same, and permutes or changes the signs of coordinates and fixes the others, so each reflection permutes and . Integrality is checked directly from : for the Cartan integers lie in , and for the values and with of the second kind are likewise integers in . For a regular vector with , direct expansion of the positive roots for , and for , shows that their simple roots are respectively and ; their Cartan matrices are and .
(Type .) In put for . It is finite, spans, is reduced, and each reflection fixes the other coordinates or changes their signs, so it permutes ; the Cartan integers are . For a regular vector with , direct expansion of the positive roots shows that the simple roots are ; their Cartan matrix is .
(Type .) In let satisfy , , and put ; the twelve vectors are distinct and nonzero. Direct computation gives , , , , , , , , from which the Cartan integers with denominator root or are seen to lie in and every root is reduced; the same formulae show permutes (it sends , , , , and fixes ) and permutes (it sends , , , , and fixes ). These permutations put every root in the orbit of or : the long positive roots are and the short ones are ; their negatives are reached by the corresponding simple reflection and conjugation. Since these permutations are orthogonal, proves reflection invariance for every root, and invariance of inner products reduces all Cartan integers to the two denominator roots already checked. Choosing a regular vector positive on the six displayed unnegated roots makes the only indecomposable positive roots, since the other four roots have the decompositions , , , and into two positive roots. The coefficient pairs show that cannot so decompose. Their Cartan matrix is , which is the diagram.
(Type .) In put . It has roots, spans, and is reduced by inspection of the coordinate supports and absolute values. Reflections in coordinate roots and in two-coordinate roots are signed coordinate permutations, hence preserve the set. For a half-root , of squared norm , use . A coordinate root maps to a half-root. For , , the inner product is or ; in the latter case the reflection cancels the two occupied coordinates and leaves coefficients in the other two coordinates. For another half-root , let be the number of agreeing signs. Then . If the roots are opposite or equal and reflection negates ; if it fixes ; if it gives a coordinate root. Thus all reflections preserve . For a denominator root of norm , all inner products are half-integers, so its Cartan integers are integral. For a denominator root of norm (a two-coordinate root), all inner products are integers, including those with half-roots; this checks the other denominators. The coordinate roots all lie in one part of any orthogonal partition, since connects to . Every other root pairs nontrivially with a coordinate root. Hence the system is irreducible. By [L2], rank four permits ; the first four constructions have respectively roots. Thus the 48-root system has diagram .
(Type .) Put . All roots have squared norm ; the subset spans, and reducedness is immediate. Reflections in its integer roots permute coordinates and change either zero or two signs, preserving both subsets. For two half-roots , the number of agreeing signs is even and . For reflection negates ; for it fixes ; for the vector has exactly two nonzero entries, both , hence is an integer root. For a half-root and integer root , is or . If it is zero reflection fixes . Otherwise is a half-root: its signs differ from those of in six positions when , and in two positions when , so the parity remains even. All pairwise inner products are integers by these formulas and the integer-root calculation; with norm squared this is crystallographic integrality. The integer roots form an irreducible spanning subset: their displayed base has a connected chain with a fork, so all its members lie in one part of any orthogonal partition; spanning then excludes a root in the other part. Thus is irreducible. It has roots. Equal root lengths force every diagram edge to be simple by [L1], so [L2] leaves . The first two have and roots by their explicit constructions; hence the diagram is .
(The two restrictions.) Let , , and . Reflection in a root of preserves , so reflection closure, integrality and reducedness are inherited. In the integer roots are the roots on the first six coordinates and . Half-roots have , giving two choices for the last pair and odd-parity choices on the first six coordinates: half-roots, thus roots in all. The integer roots span . In , the last three coordinates obey . The integer roots are precisely the two-coordinate roots on the first five coordinates. The half-roots have last signs or , with respectively odd or even parity among the first five signs: choices. Thus there are roots. The integer roots span the first five coordinate directions, and any half-root adds the remaining direction of , proving spanning and rank six.
(Irreducibility and identification of the restrictions.) The integer roots on the first six coordinates of cannot split between orthogonal parts: their connected standard base spans those six coordinates. Every half-root has nonzero projection on that span, so pairs nontrivially with at least one such root and lies in the same part. Each of pairs nontrivially with each half-root. Thus all roots lie in one part. The same argument for uses the connected spanning base on the first five coordinates, and the nonzero projection there of every half-root. Both restrictions are therefore irreducible. Their roots have equal length, so their diagrams are simply laced. In rank six [L2] leaves ; the first two have roots, whereas has , giving . In rank seven the possibilities are , with the first two counts , whereas has , giving .
These constructions realize every positive-rank type stated, with the classical and diagrams computed from simple roots and the exceptional diagrams identified using the independently established classification and explicit root counts. The additional empty rank-zero system allowed by the local convention is realized in , where the spanning and reflection axioms hold vacuously. No unsolved source exercise is used as a proof premise.
Duality exchanges B and C
Statement
Let be a reduced crystallographic root system with dual root system (Coroot and dual root system). Then is again a reduced crystallographic root system, its Cartan matrix is the transpose of that of , and its Dynkin diagram is the diagram of with every arrow reversed. Consequently, up to isomorphism, duality exchanges and and fixes with long and short roots exchanged for and .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A reduced crystallographic root system with base and Cartan matrix , , together with the coroots .
and (Coroot and dual root system).
A base is the set of simple roots of a positive system defined by a regular vector, and every positive root is a nonnegative integral combination of the elements of ; the simple roots form a basis of the ambient space (Positive systems and simple roots, Simple roots form a signed integral basis).
The irreducible root systems and their Dynkin diagrams are classified as , with and having path diagrams that differ only by the direction of the arrow on the double edge, and with the simple-laced types having symmetric Cartan matrices (Classification of irreducible root systems, Existence of each classified root system).
Proof
is a reduced crystallographic root system: it is finite, contains no zero vector, and spans because the are positive multiples of the vector-space basis . If , then is parallel to , so reducedness of gives and hence ; thus the dual is reduced. Moreover , and direct substitution gives , so integrality and reflection stability hold.
It remains to justify that is a base, rather than merely a vector-space basis. Choose a regular vector whose positive system has base . Since every is a positive scalar multiple of , the same is regular for and makes positive exactly when is positive. Let be the inner-product dual basis to , and for each put . If is positive, [L2] gives , and ; equality holds only when lies on the positive ray of , hence only when by reducedness. The same vanishing criterion holds for because it is a positive multiple of . If were a sum of two positive dual roots, pairing with would force both summands to equal , an impossibility. Thus every is simple in the dual positive system. By [L2] the complete set of dual simple roots is a basis and has elements; it therefore equals the -element linearly independent set . Its Cartan matrix has entries , so it is . The Dynkin diagram consequently reverses every arrow and keeps each edge multiplicity, since the multiplicity is .
Inspecting the classified diagrams: the simply-laced types have symmetric Cartan matrices, so they are self-dual; the triple-edge diagram and the double-edge path are each isomorphic to their arrow-reversed diagrams (interchanging the two vertices, and reversing the path), so those types are self-dual up to isomorphism with long and short roots exchanged; and for the transpose of the matrix is the matrix and conversely, while and have isomorphic diagrams and .
Combining steps 1.1-3.1 gives the assertions: duality is an involution on reduced crystallographic root systems, transforms the Cartan matrix by transposition and the diagram by arrow reversal, and therefore exchanges with and fixes every other classified type up to isomorphism.
Free Lie algebra on a vector space
Definition
Let be a complex vector space and let be its tensor algebra (Tensor algebra of a vector space). The commutator bracket makes a Lie algebra whose underlying vector space is . The free Lie algebra on , written , is the Lie subalgebra of (Lie subalgebras, ideals, and center) generated by the image of , that is, the smallest Lie subalgebra of containing . Elements of are finite linear combinations of iterated commutators of elements of .
The terminology "free" refers to the universal property proved in Universal property of the free Lie algebra: every linear map from to a complex Lie algebra extends uniquely to a homomorphism of Lie algebras from . The construction is licensed by the Poincaré-Birkhoff-Witt theorem, which identifies with the universal enveloping algebra of the free Lie algebra and shows in particular that embeds in and that when , when , and is infinite-dimensional when .
Universal property of the free Lie algebra
Statement
Let be a complex vector space and let be a complex Lie algebra (Lie algebras over a field). Every linear map extends uniquely to a homomorphism of Lie algebras . Assume the Axiom of Choice for the basis used below.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A complex vector space , a complex Lie algebra , and a linear map .
is the Lie subalgebra of the tensor algebra generated by (Free Lie algebra on a vector space).
Every linear map into a unital associative algebra extends uniquely to a unital algebra homomorphism (Universal property of the tensor algebra).
The canonical map satisfies (The canonical map to U(g) is a Lie homomorphism).
Under the Axiom of Choice, has a basis; after ordering it, the degree-one PBW corollary makes injective (Every vector space has a basis, No hidden linear relations in degree one).
Proof
By [L2] applied to the composition of with the injective canonical map , there is a unique unital algebra homomorphism extending .
The restriction of to takes values in the image of and is a Lie-algebra homomorphism: for one has , and by induction on the generation of each lies in the image of , where the bracket of two images is the image of the bracket by [L3]; hence the composite obtained by restricting and inverting the injective canonical map from [L4] is a Lie homomorphism extending .
Uniqueness: if are Lie homomorphisms agreeing on , then the set of with is a Lie subalgebra containing ; since is generated as a Lie algebra by , it is all of .
Lie algebra presented by generators and relations
Definition
Let be a complex vector space and let be a subset of the free Lie algebra (Free Lie algebra on a vector space). The Lie ideal generated by is the smallest Lie ideal containing , namely the intersection of all ideals containing ; it exists because itself is such an ideal. The Lie algebra presented by the generators and the relations is the quotient Lie algebra (Quotient Lie algebras). The bracket on the quotient is well defined by The quotient Lie-algebra bracket is well-defined. The images of the elements of generate as a Lie algebra, and a Lie algebra homomorphism out of corresponds to a Lie algebra homomorphism that annihilates , by the universal property of the free Lie algebra (Universal property of the free Lie algebra) together with the universal property of the quotient. In particular, to define a homomorphism from a presented Lie algebra it suffices to prescribe the images of the generators and to verify that all relations are satisfied.
Serre Lie algebra of a finite-type Cartan matrix
Definition
Let be a finite-type Cartan matrix of size (Properties of finite-type Cartan matrices) and let be the complex vector space with basis . The Serre Lie algebra is the Lie algebra presented by the generators and the relations together with the Serre relations in the sense of Lie algebra presented by generators and relations. The exponents are positive integers because , and for the Serre relations reduce to and . The relations express the standard presentation of a complex semisimple Lie algebra relative to simple-root triples; the algebra is shown to be finite-dimensional semisimple with Cartan matrix in Serre presentation theorem.
Serre presentation theorem
Statement
Assume the Axiom of Choice. Let be a finite-type Cartan matrix of size , meaning the Cartan matrix of a based reduced crystallographic root system as in Properties of finite-type Cartan matrices, and let be its Serre Lie algebra (Serre Lie algebra of a finite-type Cartan matrix). Then is finite-dimensional and semisimple, has a Cartan subalgebra spanned by the images of the , has root system with Cartan matrix , and has the triangular decomposition , where is generated by the respectively . If and is the Cartan matrix of an irreducible root system, then is simple. Conversely, if is a finite-dimensional complex semisimple Lie algebra with base and root triples (The root sl_2 triple), then the generate and satisfy exactly the relations of Serre Lie algebra of a finite-type Cartan matrix, so that .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A finite-type Cartan matrix and its presented algebra in the sense of its definition; and, for the converse direction, a finite-dimensional complex semisimple Lie algebra with a Cartan subalgebra , root system , base and root triples .
The Axiom of Choice is assumed (The Axiom of Choice). It supplies ordered bases for PBW and the free-Lie construction and is also assumed in the cited semisimple root-space theory.
The presentation is the quotient of the free Lie algebra by the ideal of the displayed relations (Serre Lie algebra of a finite-type Cartan matrix).
PBW gives the ordered-monomial basis and injectivity of a Lie algebra into its enveloping algebra (Poincaré–Birkhoff–Witt theorem). The free-Lie and enveloping-algebra universal properties are Universal property of the free Lie algebra and Universal property of the enveloping algebra.
Every finite-dimensional complex -module is completely reducible; its irreducible constituents have weights , each of multiplicity one, for integers (Finite-dimensional representations of sl_2).
In a finite-dimensional complex semisimple algebra, root triples satisfy the relations, root spaces are one-dimensional, and the root-space decomposition has zero space (The root sl_2 triple, Root spaces of a complex semisimple Lie algebra are one-dimensional, Root-space decomposition). The roots span and form a reduced crystallographic root system (Roots of a complex semisimple Lie algebra form a reduced crystallographic root system). By [L5], the simple roots form a basis and their Cartan matrix is nonsingular; since (Cartan matrix of a based root system), the simple coroots are therefore a basis of . Its dimension is (Dimension formula from roots).
A base is linearly independent, and every root has integral coefficients of one sign in it (Simple roots form a signed integral basis). Root reflections preserve the finite reduced root set (Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system). The Cartan matrix is nonsingular and satisfies iff , with nonpositive off-diagonal entries (Properties of finite-type Cartan matrices).
A Cartan subalgebra is nilpotent and self-normalizing (Cartan subalgebra).
Proof
Let be the Lie algebra with generators and all relations of [L1] except the Serre relations. It is -graded by , , , and Jacobi and the mixed relations reduce every bracket to a linear combination of brackets only in the 's, only in the 's, or single 's. More explicitly, follows by induction on bracket length; induction on positive bracket length then reduces to the same three summands. Their nonzero degrees have opposite signs, so the sum is direct. Thus , where is the subalgebra generated by the respectively the and is spanned by the . We claim that is free on the , that is free on the , and that the are linearly independent. For the first claim let be the semidirect product of the abelian Lie algebra with basis and the free Lie algebra on , with and ; the universal properties in [L2] identify the enveloping algebra of the free Lie algebra with the free associative algebra (both represent arbitrary choices of the generator images in a unital associative algebra). PBW, with a basis of the free Lie ideal placed before the , then identifies multiplication as a vector-space isomorphism, so is identified with . Write for the simple roots and put for the weight of a word , so that is the sum of the . Define endomorphisms of by the hat marking an omitted letter. These satisfy the relations of : the operators are multiplications by commuting polynomials, and passing from to lowers the weight by , so ; each summand of has its left factor replaced by , which differs by , giving ; and and differ only by the summand in which the leading letter is removed, present exactly when , where it equals , giving . Hence acts on . Let be the Lie homomorphism with , which is surjective, and let be the inclusion of into , which exists by [L2]. The maps (action of ) and (left multiplication by ) are Lie homomorphisms that agree on the generators , hence on ; evaluating both at gives . So forces , and is an isomorphism: is free on the . Applying the same construction with the roles of and exchanged, that is, to the automorphism , , of the presentation, which preserves the listed relations, shows that is free on the . Finally for every , and the are linearly independent in ; a relation in therefore yields , hence for all .
For later use, every root of a based root system is carried to a simple root by a product of simple reflections. For a positive nonsimple root , positivity of supplies with . Reflection subtracts the positive integer from the -th coefficient. Another coefficient is positive, since reducedness excludes a nonsimple root on a simple-root line. By the one-sign property the reflected root stays positive and has smaller height. Induction reaches a simple root; negative roots are reduced to positive ones by a final sign-changing simple reflection.
Write , , in the algebra before the Serre quotient. For put and . The relations and induction give , since . Hence for . For the commutator with vanishes termwise. For it equals , which is zero for , and for because then . The involution exchanging and negating gives . Let be the ideals generated by these elements within the free positive and negative subalgebras. These are stable under , since the generators and their iterated brackets are weight vectors. Jacobi induction on the number of positive generators bracketing proves : the base commutator is zero, and every new term preserves the ideal. Similarly . Thus is an ideal in the full algebra and is exactly the Serre ideal. It has no zero-degree part, so and the remain independent. The simple generators remain nonzero because .
For fixed the three generators give a copy of , since their nonzero distinct weights and independent exclude linear relations. For , the span of is a finite-dimensional module: kills its last vector by the Serre relation, acts by weights , and the commutator formula in step 2.1 describes . The analogous span generated by is also finite-dimensional. The span of is stable for every . Every bracket of vectors in finite-dimensional modules is in a finite-dimensional module, because the bracket is an equivariant image of their tensor product. Since all elements are finite sums of iterated brackets, every element is in a finite-dimensional module for this triple. By [L3], act locally nilpotently.
The root-lattice grading assigns degrees to . Each homogeneous bracket has that -weight by the defining relations. Nonsingularity of makes different lattice elements distinct functionals on . The triangular decomposition implies that the only possible weights are and , where , and that . Each nonzero weight space is finite-dimensional: it is spanned by the finitely many bracket words with its fixed multidegree. Furthermore for , because a Lie algebra on a single generator has no bracket of length greater than one; and .
The finite sums and are automorphisms: for any derivation , induction gives , so exponentiation preserves brackets when is locally nilpotent, with inverse . Define . On the triple, direct substitution using , , , gives . It fixes every with , so for all . Consequently maps bijectively to , where . It also preserves every ideal, because such an ideal is preserved by and their exponentials.
Suppose with . If only one coefficient is positive, step 3.2 makes a simple root. Otherwise supplies an with . Here is an integer, not in general . Step 4.1 gives a nonzero space at . At least one coefficient other than the -th stays positive, so this weight is not in . Step 3.2 therefore forces it into ; its height is strictly smaller. Induction proves and hence . Negative weights follow by the same reflection argument or the presentation involution. Conversely every root occurs: step 1.2 carries it to a simple root, whose space is nonzero, and the automorphisms in step 4.1 carry that space back. The same isomorphisms show every root space has dimension one. Thus .
Suppose the diagram of is connected. If is an ideal, invariance under makes it a sum of weight spaces: projections onto the finitely many joint eigenspaces are polynomials in the commuting diagonal operators (choose an separating their finitely many weights and use interpolation). A nonzero root component, by steps 1.2 and 4.1, puts in for some . A nonzero component instead gives from for some , by nonsingularity of . Then and . If , puts the next generator in . Connectedness propagates this to all generators, so the algebra is simple and nonabelian. For disconnected , generators in distinct blocks commute: mixed brackets and brackets vanish by the initial relations, and the zero Cartan entries give by the Serre relations. Jacobi extends this to the block subalgebras. The block inclusions and projections supplied by the presentations are mutually inverse maps with their direct sum, proving semisimplicity. Finally is abelian, and its normalizer equals itself: a nonzero root component of a normalizing vector would give a nonzero root component in its bracket with some , contrary to normalization. Hence it is a Cartan subalgebra by [L6], with precisely the root system and Cartan matrix already established.
Conversely let be finite-dimensional complex semisimple with the given base and triples. For , since has mixed signs and is not a root. The vector is killed by and has weight . In a finite-dimensional irreducible -module a vector killed by is a highest-weight vector: for a vector of weight , the commutator formula proves this and gives . Complete reducibility therefore gives ; exchange to get the other Serre relation. All other presentation relations follow from [L4]. The generated subalgebra contains , since the simple coroots form a basis. It is preserved by the exponentials of , which are nilpotent on this finite-dimensional adjoint module by [L3]. The calculation in step 4.1 therefore applies to the actual algebra too. Step 1.2 and one-dimensionality of its root spaces show that the generated subalgebra contains every root space. By the root-space decomposition it is all of , giving a surjection . Both dimensions equal by step 5.1 and [L4], so the map is an isomorphism. For the presentation has no generators and is the zero algebra, with zero Cartan subalgebra and empty root system; the converse follows from [L4] as well.
Isomorphism theorem for complex semisimple Lie algebras
Statement
Assume the Axiom of Choice. Two finite-dimensional complex semisimple Lie algebras are isomorphic if their based root systems, equivalently their Cartan matrices, are isomorphic.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: Finite-dimensional complex semisimple Lie algebras with Cartan subalgebras , root systems and bases whose Cartan matrices are equal, .
AC is assumed; it is used through the Serre presentation theorem and the root-system theorem (The Axiom of Choice).
The root system of a complex semisimple Lie algebra is a reduced crystallographic root system, and the Cartan matrix of a base is (Roots of a complex semisimple Lie algebra form a reduced crystallographic root system, Cartan matrix of a based root system).
Every root admits elements and such that is a root triple (The root sl_2 triple).
Once root triples have been chosen for the simple roots, every finite-dimensional complex semisimple Lie algebra with Cartan matrix is isomorphic to the Serre algebra via its canonical generators (Serre presentation theorem).
Two based root systems with equal Cartan matrices are isomorphic by the map carrying corresponding simple roots to one another (The Cartan matrix determines a based root system).
Proof
An isomorphism of based root systems of and means that, after numbering the simple roots compatibly, the Cartan matrices agree, and conversely equality of the matrices gives a root-system isomorphism by [L4]; so the hypothesis is equivalent to for suitable numberings.
By [L2], choose root triples and for every simple root in the two algebras. Let denote the canonical generators of . By [L3], the assignments and define isomorphisms and , because both chosen families satisfy the presentation for the common matrix .
Composing one isomorphism with the inverse of the other gives an isomorphism .
Existence theorem for complex semisimple Lie algebras
Statement
Assume the Axiom of Choice. For every reduced crystallographic root system there are a finite-dimensional complex semisimple Lie algebra , a Cartan subalgebra of , and an isomorphism from onto the resulting root system. If is nonempty and irreducible, may be taken simple. For the empty root system, may be taken to be the zero Lie algebra.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A reduced crystallographic root system .
AC is assumed and is used through the Serre presentation theorem (The Axiom of Choice).
The irreducible components are reduced crystallographic root systems with pairwise orthogonal spans whose sum is the ambient space; the decomposition is unique (Unique irreducible decomposition).
A regular vector determines a positive system and its simple roots; those simple roots form a basis, and every root has integral coordinates of one sign in that basis (Positive systems and simple roots, Simple roots form a signed integral basis).
For a finite-type Cartan matrix the Serre algebra is finite-dimensional and semisimple, with Cartan matrix and root system . If is the Cartan matrix of an irreducible component of a reduced crystallographic root system, then is simple (Serre presentation theorem).
Two based reduced crystallographic root systems with the same Cartan matrix are isomorphic by the linear map that matches their ordered bases (The Cartan matrix determines a based root system).
The zero Lie algebra is semisimple but not simple (Simple, semisimple, and reductive Lie algebras).
Proof
If , then its ambient space is zero because spans it. Taking gives the empty root system and a semisimple algebra by [L5], proving the empty case. Henceforth suppose .
Choose a regular vector and the resulting base by [L2]. By [L1], write . The restriction of the regular vector to is regular for , and positivity is tested componentwise, so is the disjoint union of the bases . Let be the Cartan matrix of ; the Cartan matrix of is the block diagonal matrix .
For each , [L3] gives a finite-dimensional semisimple Serre algebra with based root system having Cartan matrix . By [L4], the base-matching map is a root-system isomorphism . Since is the Cartan matrix of the irreducible component , [L3] also makes simple.
Put and take the direct sum of the Cartan subalgebras supplied by [L3]. Brackets between distinct summands vanish, so the roots of are exactly the roots of the summands, extended by zero on the other Cartan summands; hence its root system is the orthogonal disjoint union . The disjoint union of the maps from step 1.3 is therefore an isomorphism from onto this root system. The direct sum is finite-dimensional and semisimple, and if is irreducible then and is simple.
Cartan-Killing classification of complex simple Lie algebras
Statement
Assume the Axiom of Choice. The finite-dimensional complex simple Lie algebras are classified up to isomorphism by the connected Dynkin diagrams
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A finite-dimensional complex simple Lie algebra with Cartan subalgebra , root system and base ; and the classification of irreducible reduced crystallographic root systems.
AC is assumed and is used through the isomorphism and existence theorems (The Axiom of Choice).
A complex semisimple Lie algebra has a Cartan subalgebra, all such subalgebras are conjugate, and its roots with respect to one form a reduced crystallographic root system; the root decomposition and spanning property hold (Existence of Cartan subalgebras, Conjugacy of Cartan subalgebras, Roots of a complex semisimple Lie algebra form a reduced crystallographic root system). A nonempty root system is irreducible exactly when its Dynkin diagram is connected (Irreducibility and connected Dynkin diagrams).
The nonempty irreducible reduced crystallographic root systems are exactly those of the listed types, with the standard low-rank identifications; the supplier's local convention also regards the empty rank-zero system as irreducible (Classification of irreducible root systems).
Every type in the classification list is realized by a reduced crystallographic root system with the indicated Dynkin diagram (Existence of each classified root system).
Two finite-dimensional complex semisimple Lie algebras with isomorphic based root systems are isomorphic, and every reduced crystallographic root system is realized by a finite-dimensional complex semisimple algebra, simple when the system is nonempty and irreducible (Isomorphism theorem for complex semisimple Lie algebras, Existence theorem for complex semisimple Lie algebras).
The root Weyl group acts simply transitively on the chambers and on the corresponding positive systems and bases (Simple transitivity on Weyl chambers).
A complex semisimple algebra is generated by its simple-root triples with precisely the Serre relations. Generators at indices in distinct Cartan-matrix blocks commute (Serre presentation theorem, Serre Lie algebra of a finite-type Cartan matrix). Simple means nonabelian with no nonzero proper ideals; semisimple means vanishing solvable radical (Simple, semisimple, and reductive Lie algebras).
Proof
A simple is semisimple: its radical is an ideal, hence zero or all of , while by nonabelianness and simplicity, so its derived series cannot reach zero. Choose a Cartan and a base by [L1]. Its root set is nonempty: otherwise the root spanning property gives and then the root decomposition gives , contrary to simplicity. If the Dynkin diagram were disconnected, split its indices into two nonempty blocks I,J. The subalgebras generated by the triples in each block commute: [L6] gives this for generators, and repeated Jacobi identities extend it to all bracket words. Their sum is a subalgebra containing all generators, hence all of . Both subalgebras are nonzero ideals. They cannot both equal , since then their commutation would make abelian; but simplicity would force just that. Thus the diagram is connected and irreducible.
An algebra isomorphism carries a Cartan subalgebra to a Cartan subalgebra, since nilpotence and the self-normalizer condition are invariant under isomorphism. It carries root spaces to the corresponding root spaces, preserving the Killing form since adjoint matrices are conjugated. By Cartan conjugacy in [L1] one may compare with any Cartan chosen in the target. Choices of positive systems give isomorphic based systems by [L5]. Thus the Dynkin type does not depend on these choices and is invariant under algebra isomorphism.
If two complex simple algebras have root systems of the same classified type, [L2] supplies an unbased root-system isomorphism f. The image f(Delta) of the first base is a base in the second system: f carries the defining regular vector and positive half-space to those of a positive system. By [L5], compose f with a target Weyl element carrying that positive system to the one whose base was chosen there. The resulting based-root-system isomorphism satisfies exactly the hypothesis of [L4], so the algebras are isomorphic.
For every diagram in the list, [L3] supplies a nonempty irreducible root system. Its realization in [L4] is a finite-dimensional complex simple algebra. In particular rank one gives A_1; B_2=C_2 is represented only by B_2 and D_3=A_3 only by A_3, as in [L2].
By step 1.1 and [L2], every simple algebra has a type in the displayed list. Step 1.2 makes type well-defined on isomorphism classes and ensures distinct types cannot be isomorphic; step 1.3 proves injectivity within a type; step 1.4 proves existence for every type. This establishes the asserted bijection. The zero and one-dimensional abelian algebras are excluded by the nonabelian simple convention of [L6].
Semisimple algebras and disjoint unions of diagrams
Statement
Assume the Axiom of Choice. Finite-dimensional complex semisimple Lie algebras are classified up to isomorphism by finite disjoint unions of connected finite-type Dynkin diagrams, with multiplicity: a semisimple algebra corresponds to the multiset of connected diagrams of its simple ideals.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A finite-dimensional complex semisimple Lie algebra .
AC is assumed and is used through the Cartan-Killing classification (The Axiom of Choice).
A finite-dimensional complex semisimple Lie algebra is a finite direct sum of simple ideals (Semisimple Lie algebras decompose into simple ideals).
Finite-dimensional complex simple Lie algebras are classified up to isomorphism by the connected finite-type Dynkin diagrams (Cartan-Killing classification of complex simple Lie algebras).
Relative to any decomposition of a semisimple algebra into simple ideals, every ideal is the sum of a subfamily of the simple factors (Ideals and quotients of semisimple Lie algebras).
Proof
The simple-ideal decomposition is unique up to order. Indeed, given decompositions , [L3] writes each ideal as a sum of a subfamily of the . Simplicity and nonzeroness force that subfamily to consist of exactly one factor, so for a unique . Distinct give distinct , and every occurs because the span . Thus and the two families agree after a permutation.
Conversely, a finite multiset of connected finite-type diagrams determines a semisimple algebra up to isomorphism: take the direct sum of the simple Lie algebras attached to the diagrams by [L2]; any two semisimple algebras with the same multiset of simple-ideal diagrams are isomorphic factor by factor by [L2].
By [L1] write as a direct sum of simple ideals. Each is a finite-dimensional complex simple Lie algebra, so by [L2] it has a connected finite-type Dynkin diagram, well defined up to isomorphism, and step 1.1 makes the resulting multiset depend only on the isomorphism class of .
Steps 1.2 and 2.1 give inverse assignments between isomorphism classes of finite-dimensional complex semisimple Lie algebras and finite multisets of connected finite-type Dynkin diagrams, which is the asserted classification with multiplicity.
Classical complex matrix Lie algebras
Definition
All matrix spaces below carry the commutator bracket and are Lie subalgebras of in the sense of Lie algebras over a field; closure under the bracket is verified in each case by the computation displayed.
- The general linear Lie algebra , for . The special linear Lie algebra is a Lie subalgebra because , and agrees with The special linear Lie algebra sl_2.
- The symplectic Lie algebra is the set of with , for , where .
- The orthogonal Lie algebras and are the sets of with , for , where for and for .
Solving blockwise gives for the symplectic and even orthogonal cases, with symmetric for and skew-symmetric for , and gives for . In particular and . Each set is closed under the bracket: if and , then , and substituting and (equivalently and ) makes the four terms cancel in pairs. For , each symplectic or orthogonal family is a nonzero proper subspace of closed under the commutator, hence a Lie subalgebra.
Split Cartan subalgebras of classical matrix Lie algebras
Statement
Let be one of , , , (Classical complex matrix Lie algebras). Then the matrices whose -part is a diagonal matrix (in the case, with ) and whose remaining blocks vanish form a Cartan subalgebra (Cartan subalgebra); it is abelian and for while for each symplectic or orthogonal algebra; it is maximal toral and equals its own centralizer in .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: One of the matrix Lie algebras above, its diagonal subalgebra , and the matrix units .
The algebras are the sets described in Classical complex matrix Lie algebras, with the block forms (a diagonal in , ) and the analogous odd orthogonal form. In all cases when is diagonal.
A Cartan subalgebra is a nilpotent Lie subalgebra equal to its own normalizer; the normalizer and torality conventions are those of Cartan subalgebra, Normalizer of a Lie subalgebra and Toral and maximal toral subalgebras.
Proof
is abelian, hence nilpotent, and the linear map sending a diagonal matrix to its diagonal vector is an isomorphism of with the sum-zero hyperplane of (respectively with in the non-special-linear cases); the relevant dimensions are for and otherwise.
Choose whose full ambient diagonal entries are pairwise distinct: in take ; in the even symplectic and orthogonal cases take the diagonal entries ; and in the odd orthogonal case insert before those entries. If , then is diagonal. On the other hand every diagonal entry of a commutator with a diagonal matrix is zero, so . Its entry is ; distinctness therefore makes every off-diagonal entry of vanish. Intersecting the ambient diagonal matrices with the defining trace or form-preservation equations in [L1] gives exactly . Thus , and consequently as well.
The adjoint action of on the ambient matrix algebra is simultaneously diagonalizable: the matrix units are common eigenvectors with eigenvalue by [L1]. Since is invariant under every , their restrictions to are simultaneously diagonalizable, so is toral. Any toral subalgebra containing is abelian and hence lies in by step 1.2; therefore is maximal toral.
By steps 1.1 and 1.2 the subalgebra is nilpotent and equal to its normalizer, hence is a Cartan subalgebra; by step 2.1 it is maximal toral and equals its centralizer. This proves all the assertions.
Root systems of the classical complex Lie algebras
Statement
Let be the diagonal Cartan subalgebra of one of , , , (Split Cartan subalgebras of classical matrix Lie algebras), where in the special-linear and even-orthogonal cases and in the symplectic and odd-orthogonal cases, and let be the coordinate functionals, , where the -block is . Thus the full diagonal of is in the special-linear case, in the even cases, and in the odd case. Here a root means a nonzero simultaneous adjoint weight: its root space is . Then the roots and root spaces are:
- : the roots , , with root spaces ;
- : the roots , , with difference-root spaces from the -block and sum-root spaces from the symmetric - and -blocks, as specified below, and the roots , with root spaces and ;
- : the roots , , with root spaces spanned by the corresponding block matrix units;
- : the roots , , together with the roots , with root spaces spanned by the corresponding block matrix units.
In every case every root space is one-dimensional, and the listed root sets are reduced crystallographic Euclidean root systems in their real spans, of types , , , respectively, with the low-rank identifications , , , and .
Remarks
The low-rank identifications are checked directly in step 5.1. The later example collecting those coincidences is therefore explanatory rather than a logical prerequisite, which breaks the former circular dependency.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: One of the classical matrix Lie algebras , its diagonal subalgebra , the coordinate functionals , and the matrix units .
The algebras and their block decompositions are as in Classical complex matrix Lie algebras; for diagonal and matrix units one has , and the off-diagonal block units satisfy the symmetry conditions (symplectic), (orthogonal), with the odd case adding the and blocks.
The diagonal -block with the other blocks zero gives a Cartan subalgebra; for its diagonal coordinates sum to zero (Split Cartan subalgebras of classical matrix Lie algebras, Cartan subalgebra). The simultaneous eigenbasis needed below is constructed explicitly, without a semisimplicity premise.
A regular vector determines a positive system whose indecomposable positive roots form its base; the Cartan matrix and Dynkin diagram of a base are computed from the simple-root inner products, and the classified type names have their indicated diagrams (Positive systems and simple roots, Cartan matrix of a based root system, Dynkin diagram with edge multiplicity and arrow convention, Existence of each classified root system).
A root system in the sense used here is a reduced crystallographic root system (Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system).
Proof
In , take the off-diagonal units and a basis of the trace-zero diagonal space. The former have weights and the latter weight zero, because . These form a basis. Distinct differences remain distinct on the sum-zero hyperplane: a difference of their coefficient vectors has coordinate sum zero, and if it vanishes on that hyperplane it is a constant vector, hence zero. No such difference weight is zero for .
For the even cases, write for the full block matrix with , , hence lower diagonal block . It has weight ; has weight zero. In the symplectic case let and have respectively only or nonzero, for . Their weights are and . Also allow or , with weights and . In the even orthogonal case replace the plus sign in the off-diagonal block units by minus and omit the diagonal units. Each assertion follows entry by entry from , since the paired entries have equal weights. These matrices are a basis by the independent block parameters in [L1].
In the odd orthogonal case embed the even orthogonal basis of step 1.2 in the last rows and columns. Add with , , and with , , all zero, with their forced negative-transpose entries as in [L1]. The two nonzero entries of have weight and those of weight , because the first full diagonal entry of is zero. Together with the embedded even basis these form a basis of the odd algebra.
The bases in steps 1.1–2.1 are simultaneous eigenbases. Their nonzero weights are exactly the lists in the statement and are pairwise distinct. For the non-special-linear cases this follows by comparing coefficient vectors in the independent coordinates; in the special-linear case it was checked in step 1.1. If a linear combination is an eigenvector of weight , comparison of each basis coefficient for every makes every nonzero coefficient have weight . Thus each listed nonzero weight space is exactly its displayed line, and there are no other nonzero weight spaces. The zero weight space is precisely the diagonal Cartan. This also treats and , where the lists are empty but the two single-coordinate root vectors remain.
Give the real weight span the standard Euclidean realization: for type , identify the difference functionals with in ; otherwise identify with the orthonormal in . The lists are finite, omit zero and are reduced. They span: adjacent differences span the type hyperplane, the coordinate roots span types , and span every coordinate direction in type for . Reflection in exchanges coordinates ; reflection in exchanges and negates them; reflection in or negates coordinate . Each operation preserves the appropriate list. For denominator roots of squared length two, the Cartan integer is the integer dot product. For denominator it is and for denominator it is , again integral. These computations verify every axiom of [L4], including the smallest allowed ranks. In particular, the squared norm four of a long type root is included in the denominator calculation.
The type labels can be verified from the displayed sets rather than imported from an existence interface. Choose positives and for , together with in type or in type . The proposed bases are for type ; the same for followed by for or for ; and for followed by for . They are bases in the sense of [L3]: for example ; in type , and ; in type , and . In type , the same difference formula holds, while for , and ; hence every positive root has nonnegative integral coordinates and each height-one is indecomposable. All and simple roots have squared length two; their nonzero off-diagonal inner products are , giving the chain and, for , the fork at . For the last pair has Cartan entries , , while for they are ; all other adjacent pairs give . By [L3] these are exactly the stable-range diagrams , with the required double-edge directions, so no coordinate information is borrowed from [L3]'s supplier proof. For the small ranks, and are up to scale. The map , carries to and scales the inner product by two. The two orthogonal pairs give . For , the orthogonal vectors , , form an orthonormal basis of the sum-zero hyperplane in . The isometry maps its twelve roots onto the twelve differences of coordinate vectors in , which are . Thus all stable and low-rank type identifications follow from explicit Cartan matrices and maps.
Classical types correspond to sl, so and sp
Statement
Assume the Axiom of Choice. The simple Lie algebras of classical type are for , for , for , and for . The low-rank coincidences are and , , , and .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The classical matrix Lie algebras and their diagonal Cartan subalgebras, with the root systems computed in Root systems of the classical complex Lie algebras.
AC is assumed and is used through the isomorphism theorem (The Axiom of Choice).
The root systems of with respect to the diagonal Cartan subalgebra are the standard coordinate models of types , with one-dimensional root spaces (Root systems of the classical complex Lie algebras).
In the simple ranges, the Killing forms of , and are respectively the nonzero multiples , and , and are nondegenerate (Classical simple Lie algebras and their Killing forms).
Two finite-dimensional complex semisimple Lie algebras with isomorphic based root systems are isomorphic, and the connected classical diagrams occur in the ranges for , for , for , and for (Isomorphism theorem for complex semisimple Lie algebras, Cartan-Killing classification of complex simple Lie algebras).
Remark 23.18 of the cited Etingof notes records the root-system coincidences , , and ; the rank-one coordinate models give .
Proof
In the ranges for , for , for , and for , the algebras in the Statement have the asserted root systems by [L1], are semisimple by [L2], and have connected diagrams by [L3]; hence they are simple and have the asserted classical types.
The algebras and are in the nondegenerate Killing-form ranges of [L2]. Their based root systems agree in the pairs prescribed by [L4], so [L3] gives , , and .
For the remaining case, let be two-dimensional complex vector spaces with nondegenerate alternating forms. Their product defines a nondegenerate symmetric form on . Since and likewise for , the map is a homomorphism . It is injective: taking the partial trace over in gives , and similarly . Both sides have dimension , so it is an isomorphism .
For each type in the stable ranges, the complex simple Lie algebra with that based root system is unique up to isomorphism by [L3]. Thus , , and realize , respectively.
Apart from the coincidences in [L4], the connected classical diagrams in [L3] are distinct. Therefore the classification gives no further isomorphisms among these four classical families.
Dimensions of exceptional simple Lie algebras
Statement
Assume the Axiom of Choice. The dimensions of the complex simple Lie algebras of types are respectively .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The explicit reduced crystallographic root systems of types described in the cited source.
AC is assumed and is used through the existence and classification theorems (The Axiom of Choice).
In the explicit models of the cited source, has the twelve roots listed in Example 21.9 and rank ; Definitions 23.8, 23.11, 23.14 and 23.15 give respectively roots for , whose ranks are respectively .
For a finite-dimensional complex semisimple Lie algebra with Cartan subalgebra and root system one has . Moreover the real root span is identified with the real dual of a real form of , so (Dimension formula from roots, Roots of a complex semisimple Lie algebra form a reduced crystallographic root system, Rank and isomorphism of root systems).
Every reduced crystallographic root system is the root system of a finite-dimensional complex simple Lie algebra when irreducible, and the type determines the isomorphism class (Existence theorem for complex semisimple Lie algebras, Cartan-Killing classification of complex simple Lie algebras).
Proof
For each of the five irreducible root systems, let be the corresponding finite-dimensional complex simple Lie algebra, which exists by [L3]. The root-system isomorphism in [L3] preserves the real ambient dimension by the definition of isomorphism, and [L2] identifies that rank with the complex dimension of a Cartan subalgebra. Therefore .
Substituting the counts of [L1] gives , , , and , as asserted.
Dynkin diagrams do not classify global Lie groups
Remark
Assume the Axiom of Choice (The Axiom of Choice); it is inherited from the classification theorem cited below.
A connected Dynkin diagram classifies a finite-dimensional complex simple Lie algebra, and finite disjoint unions of connected Dynkin diagrams classify finite-dimensional complex semisimple Lie algebras. Neither classifies a real form or a connected Lie group with that Lie algebra (Cartan-Killing classification of complex simple Lie algebras, Semisimple algebras and disjoint unions of diagrams). Global classification of connected Lie groups requires isogeny or lattice data: connected groups with a given semisimple Lie algebra are classified by discrete central subgroups of the corresponding simply connected group, and that covering and lattice information is not visible in the diagram. Real semisimple Lie algebras require real-form data, namely an involution or a Satake diagram, because the diagram of the complexification does not distinguish the real forms. Both points are the subject of the following false statements and their refutations on this page; the classification of real forms and of global groups belongs to later pages and is not claimed here.
Every finite reflection-invariant set of vectors is crystallographic
Statement
False: a finite set of nonzero vectors spanning a Euclidean space that is invariant under all of its root reflections need not be crystallographic; reflection invariance alone does not force the Cartan integers to be integers.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The regular pentagon and the notation of the root-system axioms.
A reduced crystallographic root system requires and integrality of all Cartan integers (Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system).
Proof
Let ; it is a finite subset of spanning , and its ten elements lie on five distinct lines, so for each .
The set consists exactly of the unit vectors whose angles are , . If has angle , then is reflection in the perpendicular line at angle . It therefore sends the vector at angle to the vector at angle which again belongs to . Hence for every .
The integrality axiom fails. Take and ; then . With one has and , so dividing by gives , that is and . If were an integer, the integer factor pair would have to be or , neither of which consists of consecutive integers. Hence .
Thus is a finite, spanning, reduced, reflection-invariant set of nonzero vectors whose Cartan integer is not an integer, so is not a crystallographic root system by [L1]; this refutes the claim that reflection invariance alone suffices.
Simple roots are pairwise orthogonal
Statement
False: distinct simple roots of a reduced crystallographic root system are generally not orthogonal; their inner product is nonpositive and can be nonzero.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The standard model of and the notion of a simple root.
For the root system in the sum-zero subspace of , the roots and are simple with respect to the regular functional (Existence of each classified root system, Positive systems and simple roots).
Distinct simple roots satisfy (Distinct simple roots have nonpositive inner product).
Refutation
In the model of [L1] take , ; the coordinates are and in the standard orthonormal basis of , so .
Both and are simple roots by [L1], and they span a rank-two subsystem, so they are distinct simple roots that are not orthogonal; the negative value of their inner product is consistent with [L2]. This refutes the claim that simple roots are pairwise orthogonal.
Every connected finite graph is Dynkin
Statement
False: a connected finite graph need not be the Dynkin diagram of a crystallographic root system; positive definiteness and the edge restrictions exclude most connected graphs.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A cycle graph on vertices and the conventions of the Dynkin diagram.
The Dynkin diagram of a based root system has edges between vertices and no others; a finite-type Cartan matrix is symmetrizable to a positive definite matrix. When the root system is irreducible, equivalently when its diagram is connected, that diagram is a tree (Dynkin diagram with edge multiplicity and arrow convention, Properties of finite-type Cartan matrices, Shape restrictions on Dynkin diagrams).
Proof
Let and let be the cycle graph on vertices. A root system whose Dynkin diagram were would have Cartan matrix , since every edge corresponds to the single relation and nonedges to ; this matrix is symmetric.
The nonzero vector satisfies , because each vertex has exactly two neighbours in a cycle; hence is not positive definite.
Since a finite-type Cartan matrix must be symmetrizable to a positive definite matrix by [L1], no root system has the cycle as its Dynkin diagram, although is connected and finite. This refutes the claim that every connected finite graph is a Dynkin diagram.
B and C are always isomorphic
Statement
False for : and are dual to one another but are not isomorphic root systems; only gives an isomorphism.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The standard coordinate models and in .
These are the root systems of types and , with the squared lengths and in and and in (Existence of each classified root system, Root systems of the classical complex Lie algebras).
An isomorphism of root systems preserves all Cartan integers, hence preserves angles and the ratios of lengths; in an irreducible system it therefore maps roots of maximal length to roots of maximal length and roots of minimal length to roots of minimal length (Rank and isomorphism of root systems, Rank-two root-system classification).
, while for the types are distinct in the classification list (Duality exchanges B and C, Classification of irreducible root systems).
Refutation
In the roots of squared length are the with , of which there are , and the roots of squared length are the , of which there are . In the roles are exchanged: the roots of squared length are the , of which there are , and the roots of squared length are the , of which there are .
An isomorphism would preserve the length classes by [L2], so it would carry the long roots of bijectively onto the long roots of and the short roots of onto the short roots of ; for these cardinalities differ, since . Hence for . For , the coordinate models in [L1] are and , and the linear map carries one onto the other and preserves their sole Cartan integer . For the systems are isomorphic by [L3]. Therefore the isomorphism holds exactly for .
Dynkin diagrams classify real semisimple Lie algebras
Statement
False: the Dynkin diagram of the complexification does not distinguish real forms; there are non-isomorphic real semisimple Lie algebras with the same complexification.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The real Lie algebras and , both with the commutator bracket.
A finite-dimensional Lie algebra over a characteristic-zero field is semisimple if and only if its Killing form is nondegenerate (Cartan's semisimplicity criterion, Killing form).
The split algebra has Killing form , which is nondegenerate on traceless matrices (Classical simple Lie algebras and their Killing forms, Killing form).
The real Lie algebra has the basis , , with .
Specializing the diagonal-Cartan computation for to gives the two roots , hence the rank-one root system with Cartan matrix (Diagonal Cartan subalgebra and roots of sl_n).
Proof
Both algebras are three-dimensional over and are semisimple. The split algebra has the basis , and its form in [L2] is nondegenerate because for nonzero traceless one has . For , let be the matrix of in the basis of [L3]. The displayed brackets give , so its Killing form is negative definite and nondegenerate. Cartan's criterion [L1] gives semisimplicity in both cases.
The element is nonzero and is nilpotent: , , , , . In , if then is a nonzero real skew-symmetric operator in the basis ; a nonzero skew-symmetric operator is not nilpotent, because a nilpotent operator satisfies while for real skew . Hence has no nonzero element with nilpotent adjoint.
An isomorphism of Lie algebras carries elements with nilpotent adjoint to elements with nilpotent adjoint, since ; by step 1.2 the algebras and are therefore not isomorphic.
The real basis of is a complex basis of . For the compact algebra, , , and , so conversely , , and ; hence are also a complex basis of . Complexifying either inclusion therefore gives . By [L4] both complexifications have diagram , while step 2.1 shows the real algebras are not isomorphic. This is the required counterexample.
The same Dynkin diagram forces isomorphic connected Lie groups
Statement
False: connected Lie groups with the same Dynkin diagram need not be isomorphic. Assume countable choice; the assumption is inherited from the covering-group supplier used in the refutation (The Axiom of Countable Choice ()).
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The connected Lie groups and and their Lie algebras.
Conjugation on imaginary quaternions defines a twofold covering homomorphism whose differential is an isomorphism ; the groups are connected and are not isomorphic, because is simply connected while (SU(2) and SO(3): same local Lie theory, different groups).
Specializing the diagonal-Cartan computation for to gives the two roots and hence the rank-one root system (Diagonal Cartan subalgebra and roots of sl_n).
Proof
By [L1] the groups and are connected Lie groups with isomorphic Lie algebras, namely , and they are not isomorphic.
Put , , and . The matrices form a real basis of and a complex basis of , because , , and . Thus complexifying the inclusion gives . The isomorphism in step 1.1 gives the same complexification for , and [L2] identifies the Dynkin diagram of both as .
Thus the two connected groups have the same Dynkin diagram but are not isomorphic, which refutes the claim; the missing global information is the lattice data of the simply connected form, here the central subgroup . The proof uses countable choice only through the covering-group supplier of [L1], and introduces no further choice.
5 · Examples, counterexamples and false statements
Classical root systems in coordinates
Example
For , in the standard coordinates of (and the sum-zero hyperplane for type ): Each is a reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system with the standard simple roots and Dynkin diagram, and each is the root system computed from the corresponding classical matrix Lie algebra.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: An integer , the standard orthonormal basis of , and the four displayed sets.
A reduced crystallographic root system is a finite spanning set of nonzero vectors that is closed under its root reflections, has integral Cartan integers, and meets each root line in exactly the two signs (Reduced crystallographic Euclidean root system).
The root systems of the classical matrix Lie algebras with diagonal Cartan subalgebras are these same sets, with one-dimensional root spaces (Root systems of the classical complex Lie algebras).
In the cited coordinate models, the standard simple roots are for ; for ; for ; and, for with , . For the two simple roots are and .
Verification
Each set is finite, omits , and is reduced. The differences span the sum-zero hyperplane for ; and contain a nonzero multiple of every coordinate vector; and in , for any , which exists because . Thus each set spans its stated Euclidean space.
Reflection closure: and negate the th coordinate and preserve ; swaps coordinates and preserves all four sets; and swaps and negates those two coordinates and preserves . These are precisely the root reflections that occur in the displayed sets.
Integrality: proportional pairs give Cartan integer . For nonproportional pairs, roots of squared length pair by or ; a short root of squared length in pairs by or ; and a long root of squared length in pairs with a mixed root by or . Hence every Cartan integer is in . Together with steps 1.1 and 1.2, [L1] proves that all four displayed sets are reduced crystallographic root systems.
The listed simple roots of [L3] have the standard Cartan matrices of (with ), giving the stated Dynkin diagrams; and [L2] identifies these coordinate sets as the root systems of respectively.
Weyl groups of B_n and D_n
Example
For , is the full group of signed permutations of the coordinates, of order . For , is the subgroup of signed permutations with an even number of sign changes, of order .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The coordinate model in for , and the coordinate model in for .
The coordinate sets in the Given data are the classical reduced crystallographic root systems, including and (Root systems of the classical complex Lie algebras).
For a root , , and the Weyl group is generated by these reflections (Weyl group).
Verification
Substituting the orthonormal coordinate vectors into [L2] shows that negates coordinate , exchanges coordinates , and sends to , fixing all other coordinates. Negating the root leaves the reflection unchanged. Thus every reflection of either system is a signed permutation.
A signed permutation is uniquely specified by a permutation of the coordinate axes and a sign on each image axis. In type , all individual sign changes occur by step 1.1, as do all transpositions. Transpositions generate every permutation (move the desired entry to each position successively), so these reflections generate every signed permutation. Conversely every generating root reflection is such a permutation. Hence is exactly the full signed permutation group.
For a signed permutation define its sign parity as the product of its signs. Under composition this product multiplies, because permuting signs does not change their product. Each root reflection has sign parity . Conversely, the product negates exactly coordinates and fixes the rest, by step 1.1. Any even set of coordinates can be partitioned into pairs, so products of these two-reflection operations realize every even sign pattern. The difference-root reflections also generate every permutation. Hence all and only signed permutations with an even number of negative signs occur in . This uses a pair of different types of reflections, rather than the unsupported assertion that an even number of sum-root reflections alone produces every even pattern.
There are permutations and sign choices, independently, so . For , the first signs are arbitrary and the last is forced by their product, giving . At the group is of order two. At the group consists of the identity and coordinate swap, each with either both signs positive or both negative, of order four. No assertion is made for the excluded .