Symmetric Lie algebras (Q1066249)

This is the first of a series of three papers on Lie root systems and their corresponding Lie algebras. Properties known to hold for sets of roots of many simple Lie algebras over fields of characteristic \(p>3\) are used as axioms for Lie root systems. A nonzero root is classical or Witt according as those roots which are its integer multiples form a system of classical or Witt type. Lie root systems of ranks one and two are classified. One of the rank-two systems, \(T_ 2\), contains a Witt root and a classical root whose sum is Witt. It is shown that if no pair of type \(T_ 2\) occurs in a root system \(R\), then \(R\) is contained in the sum of two root systems, one with all nonzero roots classical and the other with all nonzero roots Witt. A Lie algebra \(L=\sum_{a\in R}L_ a\) is said to be symmetric if \(a([L^ 1_{-a},L^ 1_ a])\neq 0\) for all \(a\in R-\{0\}\), where \(L^ 1_ a=\{x\in L_ a|\) \([h,x]=a(h)x\) for all \(h\in L_ a\}\). It is shown that the set of roots of a symmetric Lie algebra is a Lie root system.