Counting, types and symbols of crystallographic point symmetry operations of space \(\mathbf E^ n\) (Q1311614)

Three methods are described which can be used for calculating the number of types of crystallographic Point Symmetry Operations in an euclidean space of any finite dimension. These operations (called in the paper ``crPSO'') are elements \(R\in K\subset O(n)\) of crystallographic point groups \(K\), which for the given dimension \(n\) are isomorphic to finite subgroups of \(\text{Gl}(n,\mathbb{Z})\). This condition implies the so-called crystallographic restrictions on the orthogonal transformations \(R\). The type of \(R\) is characterized by the set of the corresponding eigenvalues. It appears that it is important to distinguish between the transitive case, implying that \(R\) does not leave any non-trivial subspace invariant, and the non-transitive one. A transitive operation \(R\) of finite order \(m\) only occurs in a space of dimension \(\Phi(m)\), where \(\Phi(m)\) is the Euler indicatrix given by the number of primes relative to \(m\) and smaller than \(m\). The three methods considered are: The Hermann Method based on the partitions of the natural integer \(n\) of the dimension of the space and on the possible transitive crystallographic point group operations in the corresponding subspaces. This method is applied to calculate the number of types of crPSO's for spaces up to dimension \(n=16\). The Pseudo Cartesian Product Method also based on the Euler indicatrix. Here are considered even dimensional spaces with their even dimensional subspaces. This method yields a formula suited for calculating the number of crPSO's for arbitrary finite dimension \(n\). The results for \(n\leq 70\) are indicated. The Characteristic Equation Method based on the characteristic equation of the integral matrix representing \(R\). The crystallographic restrictions imposed on the rotation angles of \(R\) are then made explicit. One then gets the same result as with the second method, but with much more information on the crystallographic rotations involved.