Principal Homogeneous Space - Examples

Examples

Every group G can itself be thought of as a left or right G-torsor under the natural action of left or right multiplication.

Another example is the affine space concept: the idea of the affine space A underlying a vector space V can be said succinctly by saying that A is principal homogeneous space for V acting as the additive group of translations.

The flags of any regular polytope form a torsor for its symmetry group.

Given a vector space V we can take G to be the general linear group GL(V), and X to be the set of all (ordered) bases of V. Then G acts on X in the way that it acts on vectors of V; and it acts transitively since any basis can be transformed via G to any other. What is more, a linear transformation fixing each vector of a basis will fix all v in V, hence being the neutral element of the general linear group GL(V) : so that X is indeed a principal homogeneous space. One way to follow basis-dependence in a linear algebra argument is to track variables x in X. Similarly, the space of orthonormal bases (the Stiefel manifold of n-frames) is a principal homogeneous space for the orthogonal group.

In category theory, if two objects X and Y are isomorphic, then the isomorphisms between them, Iso(X,Y), form a torsor for the automorphism group of X, Aut(X), and likewise for Aut(Y); a choice of isomorphism between the objects gives an isomorphism between these groups and identifies the torsor with these two groups, and giving the torsor a group structure (as it is a base point).

Read more about this topic:  Principal Homogeneous Space

Famous quotes containing the word examples:

    In the examples that I here bring in of what I have [read], heard, done or said, I have refrained from daring to alter even the smallest and most indifferent circumstances. My conscience falsifies not an iota; for my knowledge I cannot answer.
    Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)

    Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.
    Alexander Pope (1688–1744)