6.3 The compact and split real forms of a semi-simple Lie algebra
We shall consider here only semi-simple Lie algebras. Over the complex numbers, Cartan subalgebras are
“unique”.
These subalgebras may be defined as maximal Abelian subalgebras
such that the transformations in
are simultaneously diagonalizable (over
). Diagonalizability is an essential ingredient in the
definition. There might indeed exist Abelian subalgebras of dimension higher than the rank (= dimension of
Cartan subalgebras), but these would involve non-diagonalizable elements and would not be Cartan
subalgebras.
We denote the set of nonzero roots as
. One may complete the Chevalley generators into a full
basis, the so-called Cartan–Weyl basis, such that the following commutation relations hold:
where
is defined by duality thanks to the Killing form
, which is
non-singular on semi-simple Lie algebras:
and the generators are normalized according to (see Equation (6.43))
The generators
associated with the roots
(where
need not be a simple root) may be chosen
such that the structure constants
satisfy the relations
where the scalar product between roots is defined as
The non-negative integers
and
are such that the string of all vectors
belongs to
for
; they also satisfy the equation
. A standard result states that for
semi-simple Lie algebras
from which we notice that the roots are real when evaluated on an
-generator,
An important consequence of this discussion is that in Equation (6.32), the structure constants of the
commutations relations may all be chosen real. Thus, if we restrict ourselves to real scalars we obtain a real
Lie algebra
, which is called the split real form because it contains the maximal number of noncompact
generators. This real form of
reads explicitly
The signature of the Killing form on
(which is real) is easily computed. First, it is positive definite on
the real linear span
of the
generators. Indeed,
Second, the invariance of the Killing form fixes the normalization of the
generators to one,
since
Moreover, one has
if
. Indeed
maps
into
, i.e., in
matrix terms
has zero elements on the diagonal when
. Hence, the vectors
are spacelike and orthogonal to the vectors
, which are timelike. This implies that
the signature of the Killing form is
The split real form
of
is “unique”.
On the other hand, it is not difficult to check that the linear span
also defines a real Lie algebra. An important property of this real form is that the Killing form is negative
definite on it. Its signature is
This is an immediate consequence of the previous discussion and of the way
is constructed. Hence, this real Lie algebra
is compact.
For this reason,
is called the “compact real form” of
. It is also “unique”.