No label defined (Q4032324)

Let \(G\) be a real finite dimensional Lie group, \({\mathfrak g}\) its Lie algebra and \(\exp: {\mathfrak g}\to G\) the corresponding exponential function. Then for small \(X,Y\in{\mathfrak g}\) one has the identity (*) \(\exp(X) \exp(Y)= \exp(C(X,Y))\), where \(C(X,Y)\) is a convergent series in \({\mathfrak g}\) whose summands are the higher Lie brackets of \(X\) and \(Y\) multiplied with universal coefficients. It starts \(C(X,Y)= X+Y+ {1\over 2}[X,Y]+\dots \). The identity (*) is called the Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff formula. The present article reviews the proof of this identity and describes also Hausdorff's original approach, which however, does not give the means to calculate the coefficients.