The E₈ geometry from a Clifford perspective

DOI10.1007/S00006-016-0675-9MaRDI QIDQ2361044zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Pierre-Philippe Dechant

Publication date 29 June 2017

Published in Advances in Applied Clifford Algebras (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.04805

zbMATH Keywords

\(E_8\)Clifford algebrasCoxeter groupsCoxeter planeexceptional phenomenaicosahedral symmetryLie algebrasLie groupsMcKay correspondencequantum algebrasrepresentation theoryroot systemsspinorstrinities

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

McKay correspondence (14E16) Clifford algebras, spinors (15A66) Root systems (17B22) Reflection and Coxeter groups (group-theoretic aspects) (20F55) Three-dimensional polytopes (52B10) Special polytopes (linear programming, centrally symmetric, etc.) (52B12) Symmetry properties of polytopes (52B15)

Abstract: This paper considers the geometry of $E_8$ from a Clifford point of view in three complementary ways. Firstly, in earlier work, I had shown how to construct the four-dimensional exceptional root systems from the 3D root systems using Clifford techniques, by constructing them in the 4D even subalgebra of the 3D Clifford algebra; for instance the icosahedral root system $H_3$ gives rise to the largest (and therefore exceptional) non-crystallographic root system $H_4$. Arnold's trinities and the McKay correspondence then hint that there might be an indirect connection between the icosahedron and $E_8$. Secondly, in a related construction, I have now made this connection explicit for the first time: in the 8D Clifford algebra of 3D space the $120$ elements of the icosahedral group $H_3$ are doubly covered by $240$ 8-component objects, which endowed with a `reduced inner product' are exactly the $E_8$ root system. It was previously known that $E_8$ splits into $H_4$-invariant subspaces, and we discuss the folding construction relating the two pictures. This folding is a partial version of the one used for the construction of the Coxeter plane, so thirdly we discuss the geometry of the Coxeter plane in a Clifford algebra framework. We advocate the complete factorisation of the Coxeter versor in the Clifford algebra into exponentials of bivectors describing rotations in orthogonal planes with the rotation angle giving the correct exponents, which gives much more geometric insight than the usual approach of complexification and search for complex eigenvalues. In particular, we explicitly find these factorisations for the 2D, 3D and 4D root systems, $D_6$ as well as $E_8$, whose Coxeter versor factorises as $W=exp(fracpi30B_C)exp(frac11pi30B_2)exp(frac7pi30B_3)exp(frac13pi30B_4)$.

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Cited in

(11)

• Clifford spinors and root system induction: \(H_4\) and the grand antiprism
• New applications of Clifford's geometric algebra
• Emergence of an aperiodic Dirichlet space from the tetrahedral units of an icosahedral internal space
• \(E_{8}\) geometry
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• A 3D spinorial view of 4D exceptional phenomena
• Clifford algebra unveils a surprising geometric significance of quaternionic root systems of Coxeter groups
• Simple transitive 2-representations of small quotients of Soergel bimodules
• Icosians versus octonions as descriptions of the E₈lattice
• From the trinity (A₃, B₃, H₃) to an ADE correspondence
• Some recent results for SU(3) and octonions within the geometric algebra approach to the fundamental forces of nature

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Uses Software

• CLUCalc

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