Weakly commutative Lie semigroups (Q750630)

Each nonsingular upper triangular real stochastic \(n\times n\)-matrix (nonnegative entries, row sums 1!) can be written in the form \(C_{n- 1}...C_ 1\) with \[ C_ p=\exp (t_{p,p+1}E_{p,p+1})...\exp (t_{pn}E_{pn}), \] with \(t_{ij}\geq 0\), where \(E_{ij}\), \(i\neq j\), is the matrix with 1 in position ij and -1 in position ii. In particular, the semigroup S of \(n\times n\) nonsingular upper triangular stochastic matrices has the tangent wedge L(S) of all upper triangular matrices of row sum 0 with nonnegative off-diagonal entries, and \(S=<\exp L(S)>\). In the particular case of \(n=3\), every element of S is of the form \(\exp (t_ 1E_{23})\exp (t_ 2E_{12})\exp (t_ 3E_{13})\) with \(t_ j\geq 0\), \(j=1,2,3\). The Lie algebra spanned by \(E_{12}\), \(E_{23}\), and \(E_{13}\) is isomorphic to the direct sum of the two dimensional nonabelian Lie algebra and the one-dimensional algebra. These algebras \({\mathfrak g}\) have the property that for X,Y\(\in {\mathfrak g}\) there are x,y\(\geq 0\) with exp X exp Y\(=\exp y\cdot Y \exp x\cdot X\). This is the defining condition for weak commutativity. This concept is not explored beyond the three dimensional case. The author explores those semigroups in the group G with Lie algebra \({\mathfrak g}\) for which there are elements X,Y,Z\(\in {\mathfrak g}\) such that each element of S is of the form exp \(x\cdot X \exp y\cdot Y \exp z\cdot Z\) with x,y,z\(\geq 0\) and gives explicit classification results. The possible cases are surprisingly variegated; but this is a not uncommon phenomenon in solvable Lie groups and algebras.