Reflection positivity and conformal symmetry

Representations of Lie and linear algebraic groups over real fields: analytic methods (22E45) Analysis on and representations of infinite-dimensional Lie groups (22E66)

Abstract: The concept of reflection positivity has its origins in the work of Osterwalder--Schrader on constructive quantum field theory and duality between unitary representations of the euclidean motion group and the Poincare group. On the mathematical side this duality can be made precise as follows. If

g

is a Lie algebra with an involutive automorphism

a u

. Decompose

g = f h o p l u s f q = k e r (a u - 1) o p l u s k e r (a u + 1)

into

a u

-eigenspaces and let

g^{c} := f h o p l u s i f q

. At the core of the notion of reflection positivity is the idea that this duality can sometimes be implemented on the level of unitary representations. The idea is simple on the Lie algebra level: Let

(p i, c H^{0})

be a representation of

g

where

p i

acts by skew-symmetric operators. Assume that there exists a unitary operator

J

of order two such that

J p i J = p i c i r c a u

and a

g

-invariant subspace

c K^{0}

which is {it

J

-positive}. Then complex linear extension leads to a representation of

g^{c}

on

c K^{0}

by operators which are skew-symmetric with respect to

h_{J}

, so that we obtain a "unitary" representation of

g^{c}

on the pre-Hilbert space

c K_{J}^{0} := c K_{J} / v : c K^{0} : h_{J} (v, v) = 0

. The aim of this article is twofold. First we discuss reflection positivity in an abstract setting using {it reflection positive distributions} on the Lie group

G_{a} u = G t i m e s 1, a u

and {it reflection positive distribution vectors} of a unitary representation of

G_{a} u

. Then we apply these ideas to the conformal group

O O_{1, n + 1}^{+} (R)

of the sphere

as well as the the half-space picture mostly used in physics.

Review text

The paper under review is the first in a series of papers in which the authors plan to describe representation theoretic aspects of reflection positive representations of Lie groups. A \textit{reflection positive Hilbert space} is a triple \((\mathcal{E},\mathcal{E}_+,\theta)\) where \(\mathcal{E}\) is a Hilbert space, \(\theta\) is a unitary involution on \(\mathcal{E}\), and \(\mathcal{E}_+\) is a closed \(\theta\)-positive subspace. Now, given a triple \((G,\tau,S)\) consisting of a Lie group \(G\), an involution \(\tau\) on \(G\) and an open \(\tau(\cdot)^{-1}\)-invariant subsemigroup \(S\) of \(G\), a unitary representation \(\pi\) of \(G\) on \(\mathcal{E}\) is \textit{reflection positive} provided that \(\theta\pi(g)\theta=\pi(\tau(g))\) for all \(g\in G\) and, moreover, \(\pi(S)\mathcal{E}_+\subset\mathcal{E}_+\). The authors propose an approach for the description of reflection positive representations in terms of cyclic distribution vectors satisfying a reflection positivity condition. This leads to some classification results, notably, in the abelian case. The same approach is applicable to some examples in the non-abelian case, for instance, the authors consider in detail the complementary series representations of the conformal group of an \(n\)-dimension sphere. Finally, the authors also generalize the Bochner-Schwartz Theorem to positive distributions on open convex cones.

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