Lie Groups and Lie Algebras: Winter-2023
Practice Exercises 2 : Due Friday 1/20

  1. Lie Algebras of Vector Fields S0 4605S

    Recall that a vector field \(\boldsymbol{\vec v}\) acts on functions \(f\) by taking the directional derivative, that is \[\boldsymbol{\vec v}(f) = \boldsymbol{\vec v}\cdot\boldsymbol{\vec\nabla}f\]

    Show that the set of all vector fields on \(\mathbb{R}^3\) forms a Lie algebra. That is, show first that the commutator of any two vector fields is a vector field then show that vector fields automatically satisfy the Jaobi identity.

    In particular, this shows that the vector space of real linear combinations of any (finite) set of vector fields that is closed under commutation is a Lie algebra. (The set of all vector fields is an infinite-dimensional vector space over the reals.)

  2. Unitary matrices S0 4605S Unitary matrices are complex matrices that satisfy the condition \(M^\dagger M=I\), where \(I\) denotes the identity matrix. Special unitary matrices satisfy the additional condition that \(\det M=1\). The \(n\times n\) special unitary matrices are denoted by \(SU(n)\), which turns out to be a Lie group.
    1. Find any one element of \(SU(2)\).
    2. Find at least one 1-parameter family of elements of \(SU(2)\), that is, a family of matrices \(M(\alpha)\in SU(2)\) satisfying:
      • \(M(0)=I\)
      • \(M(\alpha+\beta)=M(\alpha)M(\beta)\)
    3. Find the most general element of \(SU(2)\).