E₆ (mathematics) - Important Subalgebras and Representations

Important Subalgebras and Representations

The Lie algebra E₆ has an F₄ subalgebra, which is the fixed subalgebra of an outer automorphism, and an SU(3) × SU(3) × SU(3) subalgebra. Other maximal subalgebras which have an importance in physics (see below) and can be read off the Dynkin diagram, are the algebras of SO(10) × U(1) and SU(6) × SU(2).

In addition to the 78-dimensional adjoint representation, there are two dual 27-dimensional "vector" representations.

The characters of finite dimensional representations of the real and complex Lie algebras and Lie groups are all given by the Weyl character formula. The dimensions of the smallest irreducible representations are (sequence A121737 in OEIS):

1, 27 (twice), 78, 351 (four times), 650, 1728 (twice), 2430, 2925, 3003 (twice), 5824 (twice), 7371 (twice), 7722 (twice), 17550 (twice), 19305 (four times), 34398 (twice), 34749, 43758, 46332 (twice), 51975 (twice), 54054 (twice), 61425 (twice), 70070, 78975 (twice), 85293, 100386 (twice), 105600, 112320 (twice), 146432 (twice), 252252 (twice), 314496 (twice), 359424 (four times), 371800 (twice), 386100 (twice), 393822 (twice), 412776 (twice), 442442 (twice)…

The underlined terms in the sequence above are the dimensions of those irreducible representations possessed by the adjoint form of E₆ (equivalently, those whose weights belong to the root lattice of E₆), whereas the full sequence gives the dimensions of the irreducible representations of the simply connected form of E₆.

The symmetry of the Dynkin diagram of E₆ explains why many dimensions occur twice, the corresponding representations being related by the non-trivial outer automorphism; however, there are sometimes even more representations than this, such as four of dimension 351, two of which are fundamental and two of which are not.

The fundamental representations have dimensions 27, 351, 2925, 351, 27 and 78 (corresponding to the seven nodes in the Dynkin diagram in the order chosen for the Cartan matrix above, i.e., the nodes are read in the five-node chain first, with the last node being connected to the middle one).