Möbius groups over general fields using Clifford algebras associated with spheres

Clifford algebras, spinors (15A66) Hermitian, skew-Hermitian, and related matrices (15B57) Möbius geometries (51B10) Orthogonal and unitary groups in metric geometry (51F25) Classical or axiomatic geometry and physics (51P05) String and superstring theories in gravitational theory (83E30)

Review text

The space H(2,\({\mathbb{C}})\) of 2-by-2 Hermitian matrices is isometric to Minskowski space \({\mathbb{R}}^{1,3}\). This is commonly used to exhibit the group SL(2,\({\mathbb{C}})\) as a twofold cover of the identity component of the Lorentz group O(1,3). That the Hermitian matrices of H(2,\({\mathbb{C}})\) also represent equations of circles in the Euclidean plane \(E^ 2\) leads to the group PSL(2,\({\mathbb{C}})\) as the Möbius group - a group of complex point transformations that send ``circles to ``circles - of \(E^ 2\). Clifford algebras naturally arise in the construction of covers of the orthogonal group of a vector space V by spin groups. The authors here extend the classical case \(V={\mathbb{C}}\)- using a new approach which is quite different from that of Vahlen as revived recently by Ahlfors (1986) and others - to the case of a finite-dimensional vector space V over an arbitrary commutative field of characteristic \(\neq 2\) as follows: the equation of a ``sphere is determined by a nondegenerate quadratic form of V (instead of by the Hermitian form associated with \({\mathbb{C}})\); the cover of the full orthogonal group of V is constructed by using the whole Clifford algebra of the space of equations of spheres.

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