Lie Algebras in Particle Physics

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Preface to the Revised Edition

Lie Algebras in Particle Physics has been a very successful book. I have
long resisted the temptation to produce a revised edition. I do so finally,
because I find that there is so much new material that should be included,
and so many things that I would like to say slightly differently. On the other
hand, one of the good things about the first edition was that it did not do too
much. The material could be dealt with in a one semester course by students
with good preparation in quantum mechanics. In an attempt to preserve this
advantage while including new material, I have flagged some sections that
can be left out in a first reading. The titles of these sections begin with an
asterisk, as do the problems that refer to them.
I may be prejudiced, but I think that this material is wonderful fun to
teach, and to learn. I use this as a text for what is formally a graduate class,
but it is taken successfully by many advanced undergrads at Harvard. The
important prerequisite is a good background in quantum mechanics and linear
algebra.
It has been over five years since I first began to revise this material and
typeset it in ~TEX. Between then and now, many many students have used the
evolving manuscript as a text. I am grateful to many of them for suggestions
of many kinds, from typos to grammar to pedagogy.
As always, I am enormously grateful to my family for putting up with
me for all this time. I am also grateful for their help with my inspirational
epilogue.

Howard Georgi
Cambridge, MA
May, 1999

xi
Contents

Why Group Theory? 1

1 Finite Groups 2
1.1 Groups and representations 2
1.2 Example- Z3 ....... 3
1.3 The regular representation 4
1.4 Irreducible representations 5
1.5 Transformation groups .. 6
1.6 Application: parity in quantum mechanics 7
1.7 Example: 83 . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.8 Example: addition of integers . 9
1.9 Useful theorems . 10
1.10 Subgroups . . . . . . . . 11
1.11 Schur's lemma ..... 13
1.12 * Orthogonality relations 17
1.13 Characters . . . 20
1.14 Eigenstates ....... 25
1.15 Tensor products . . . . . 26
1.16 Example of tensor products . 27
1.17 * Finding the normal modes 29
1.18 * Symmetries of 2n+ 1-gons 33
1.19 Permutation group on n objects . 34
1.20 Conjugacy classes . . . . . . . 35
1.21 Young tableaux . . . . . . . . 37
1.22 Example - our old friend 8 3 . 38
1.23 Another example - 84 . . . . 38
1.24 *Young tableaux and representations of 8n 38

xiii
xiv CONTENTS

2 Lie Groups 43
2.1 Generators . 43
2.2 Lie algebras 45
2.3 The Jacobi identity 47
2.4 The adjoint representation 48
2.5 Simple algebras and groups . 51
2.6 States and operators .. 52
2.7 Fun with exponentials . 53

3 SU(2) 56
3.1 h eigenstates • • • 0 • • • • • 56
3.2 Raising and lowering operators 57
3.3 The standard notation 60
3.4 Tensor products 63
3.5 h values add 64

4 Tensor Operators 68
4.1 Orbital angular momentum 68
4.2 Using tensor operators .. 69
4.3 The Wigner-Eckart theorem 70
4.4 Example . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.5 * Making tensor operators 75
4.6 Products of operators 77

5 Isospin 79
5.1 Charge independence 79
5.2 Creation operators . 80
5.3 Number operators . . 82
5.4 Isospin generators . . 82
5.5 Symmetry of tensor products 83
5.6 The deuteron 0 • • • 84
5.7 Superselection rules . . . . . 85
5.8 Other particles . . . . . . . . 86
5.9 Approximate isospin symmetry . 88
5.10 Perturbation theory ....... 88

6 Roots and Weights 90

6.1 Weights ... • • • • • • • 0 • • • 90
6.2 More on the adjoint representation 91
6.3 Roots •• 0 0 • • • • 92
6.4 Raising and lowering • • • 0 •• 0 93
CONTENTS XV

6.5 Lots of SU(2)s . . . . . . . . . . 93

6.6 Watch carefully - this is important! 95

7 SU(3) 98
7.1 The Gell-Mann matrices 98
7.2 Weights and roots of SU(3) 100

8 Simple Roots 103

8.1 Positive weights . 103
8.2 Simple roots . . . 105
8.3 Constructing the algebra 108
8.4 Dynkin diagrams 111
8.5 Example: G2 . . . 112
8.6 The roots of G2 . . 112
8. 7 The Cartan matrix . 114
8.8 Finding all the roots . 115
8.9 The SU(2)s . . . . . 117
8.10 Constructing the G 2 algebra 118
8.11 Another example: the algebra C3 . 120
8.12 Fundamental weights . . 121
8.13 The trace of a generator . . . . . . 123

9 More SU(3) 125

9.1 Fundamental representations of SU (3) . 125
9.2 Constructing the states 127
9.3 The Weyl group . . . . . . . . . . 130
9.4 Complex conjugation . . . . . . . 131
9.5 Examples of other representations 132

10 Tensor Methods 138

10.1 lower and upper indices . . . . . . . . . . 138
10.2 Tensor components and wave functions 139
10.3 Irreducible representations and symmetry 140
10.4 Invariant tensors . . . . . . . . . 141
10.5 Clebsch-Gordan decomposition . 141
10.6 Triality . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
10.7 Matrix elements and operators 143
10.8 Normalization . . . . .. 144
10.9 Tensor operators . . . . . 145
I 0.1 OThe dimension of (n, m) 145
10.11 *The weights of (n,m). 146
xvi CONTENTS

10.12Generalization ofWigner-Eckart . . . . . . 152

10.13* Tensors for SU(2) . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
10.14 * Clebsch-Gordan coefficients from tensors 156
10.15* Spin 8 1 + 82- 1 157
10.16* Spin 81 + 82- k . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

11 Hypercharge and Strangeness 166

11.1 The eight-fold way . . . . . . . . . 166
11.2 The Gell-Mann Okubo formula . 169
11.3 Hadron resonances 173
11.4 Quarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

12 Young Tableaux 178

12.1 Raising the indices . . . . . . .. 178
12.2 Clebsch-Gordan decomposition . . 180
12.3 SU(3) -+ SU(2) x U(l) . 183

13 SU(N) 187
13.1 Generalized Gell-Mann matrices 187
13.2 SU(N) tensors . . . . . 190
13.3 Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . 193
13.4 Complex representations . . . . 194
13.5 SU(N) ® SU(M) E SU(N + M) 195

14 3-D Harmonic Oscillator 198

14.1 Raising and lowering operators .. 198
14.2 Angular momentum . . . . . . . . 200
14.3 A more complicated example . 200

15 SU(6) and the Quark Model 205

15.1 Including the spin . . . . 205
15.2 SU(N) ® SU(M) E SU(N M) 206
15.3 The baryon states . 208
15.4 Magnetic moments . . . . . . . 210

16 Color 214
16.1 Colored quarks . . . . . . . 214
16.2 Quantum Chromodynamics . 218
16.3 Heavy quarks . . . . . . 219
16.4 Flavor SU(4) is useless! .. 219
CONTENTS xvii

17 Constituent Quarks 221

17.1 The nonrelativistic limit . 221

18 Unified Theories and SU(5) 225

18.1 Grand unification . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
18.2 Parity violation, helicity and handedness 226
18.3 Spontaneously broken symmetry . . . . 228
18.4 Physics of spontaneous symmetry breaking 229
18.5 Is the Higgs real? . . . 230
18.6 Unification and SU(5) 231
18.7 Breaking SU(5) . 234
18.8 Proton decay .. 235

19 The Classical Groups 237

19.1 The S0(2n) algebras . 237
19.2 The S0(2n + 1) algebras. 238
19.3 The Sp(2n) algebras 239
19.4 Quatemions . . . . . . . 240

20 The Classification Theorem 244

20.1 II -systems . . . . . . 244
20.2 Regular subalgebras . 251
20.3 Other Subalgebras . . 253

21 S0(2n + 1) and Spinors 255

21.1 Fundamental weight of S0(2n + 1) 255
21.2 Real and pseudo-real . . . . 259
21.3 Real representations . . . . . 261
21.4 Pseudo-real representations . 262
21.5 R is an invariant tensor 262
21.6 The explicit form for R 262

22 S0(2n + 2) Spinors 265

22.1 Fundamental weights of S0(2n + 2) 265

23 SU(n) c S0(2n) 270

23.1 Clifford algebras . . . . . . . 270
23.2 r m and R as invariant tensors 272
23.3 Products of rs . . . 274
23.4 Self-duality . . . . 277
23.5 Example: 80(10) . 279
xvili CONTENTS

23.6 The 8U(n) subalgebra 279

24 80(10) 282
24.1 80(10) and 8U(4) x 8U(2) x 8U(2) . . . . . . . . . . . 282
24.2 * Spontaneous breaking of 80(10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
24.3 *Breaking 80(10) --+ 8U(5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
24.4 *Breaking 80(10) --+ 8U(3) x 8U(2) x U(l) . . . . . . 287
24.5 *Breaking 80(10)--+ 8U(3) x U(l) . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
24.6 * Lepton number as a fourth color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

25 Automorphisms 291
25.1 Outer automorphisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
25.2 Fun with 80(8) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

26 8p(2n) 297
26.1 Weights of 8U (n) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
26.2 Tensors for 8p(2n) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

27 Odds and Ends 302

27.1 Exceptional algebras and octonians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
27.2 E6 unification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
27.3 Breaking E 6 • • • • • • . • • • . . • • • • . . . . • . . . • . 308
27.4 8U(3) x 8U(3) x 8U(3) unification . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
27.5 Anomalies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

Epilogue 311

Index 312
Why Group Theory?

Group theory is the study of symmetry. It is an incredible labor saving device.

It allows us to say interesting, sometimes very detailed things about physical
systems even when we don't understand exactly what the systems are! When
I was a teenager, I read an essay by Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington on the
Theory of Groups and a quotation from it has stuck with me for over 30
years: 1

We need a super-mathematics in which the operations are as un-

known as the quantities they operate on, and a super-mathematician
who does not know what he is doing when he performs these op-
erations. Such a super-mathematics is the Theory of Groups.

In this book, I will try to convince you that Eddington had things a little
bit wrong, as least as far as physics is concerned. A lot of what physicists
use to extract information from symmetry is not the groups themselves, but
group representations. You will see exactly what this means in more detail as
you read on. What I hope you will take away from this book is enough about
the theory of groups and Lie algebras and their representations to use group
representations as labor-saving tools, particularly in the study of quantum
mechanics.
The basic approach will be to alternate between mathematics and physics,
and to approach each problem from several different angles. I hope that you
will learn that by using several techniques at once, you can work problems
more efficiently, and also understand each of the techniques more deeply.

1in The World of Mathematics, Ed. by James R. Newman, Simon & Schuster, New York,

1956.