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hyperoctahedral_group

Hyperoctahedral group

A hyperoctahedral group is any member of a sequence $(H_N)_{N\in \N}$ of classical orthogonal matrix groups.

Definition

As a matrix group

For every $N\in \N$ the hyperoctahedral group $H_N$ for dimension $N$ can be defined as the subgroup of the general linear group $\mathrm{GL}(N,\C)$ given by all orthogonal $N\times N$-matrices with integer entries, i.e., the set

$$H_N\colon\hspace{-0.6em}=\{ u\in \C^{N\times N}\,\vert\, u=\overline{u},\, uu^t=u^tu=I, \,\forall_{i,j=1}^N:  u_{i,j}\in\Z\},$$

where, if $u=(u_{i,j})_{i,j=1}^N$, then $\overline u=(\overline{u}_{i,j})_{i,j=1}^N$ is the complex conjugate of $u$ and $u^t=(u_{j,i})_{i,j=1}^N$ the transpose and where $I_N$ is the identity $N\!\times \!N$-matrix.

As a wreath product

The hyperoctahedral group $H_N$ for dimension $N$, where $N\in\N$, can also be defined as the wreath product of groups $H_N\colon\hspace{-0.6em}=\Z_2\wr S_N$ with respect to the natural action $S_N\times \{1,\ldots,N\}\to\{1,\ldots,N\},\,(\pi,i)\mapsto\pi(i)$, where $S_N$ is the symmetric group and where $\Z_2\equiv \Z / 2\Z$ is the cyclic group of order $2$.

Given a set $X$, two groups $G$ and $H$ and a group action $\mu:H\times X\to X$ of $H$ on $X$ the (unrestricted) wreath product $G\wr_\mu H$ of $G$ and $H$ with respect to $\mu$ is the semi-direct product of groups of the direct product group $G^I$ over $I$ and $H$ with respect to the group homomorphism $H\to \mathrm{Aut}(G^I),\, h\mapsto (g\mapsto g\circ \mu(h^{-1},\,\cdot\,))$.

If $A\equiv (A,\,\cdot\,)$ and $B\equiv (B,\,\odot\,)$ are groups and $\varphi:B\to \mathrm{Aut}(A)$ a group homomorphism from $B$ to the group of group automorphisms of $A$, then the (outer) semi-direct product $A\rtimes_\varphi B$ of $A$ and $B$ with respect to $\varphi$ is the group with underlying set $A\times B$, the cartesian product of $A$ and $B$, and with group law $((a,b),(a',b'))\mapsto (a\cdot \varphi(b)(a'),b\odot b')$.

For the hyperoctahedral group $H_N$ this means that $H_N=\Z_2\wr S_N$ is given by the group with underlying set $(\Z_2)^{\times N}\times S_N$ and group law $(((i_1,\ldots,i_N),\pi),((j_1,\ldots,j_N),\rho))\mapsto ((i_1+j_{\pi^{-1}(1)},\ldots,i_N+j_{\pi^{-1}(N)}),\pi\circ \rho)$.

Basic properties

The hyperoctahedral groups $(B_N)_{N\in \N}$ are an easy family of compact matrix quantum groups, i.e., the intertwiner spaces of their corepresentation categories are induced by a category of partitions. More precisely, it is the category of partitions with blocks of even size that induces the corepresentation categories of $(H_N)_{N\in \N}$. Its canonical generating set of partitions is $\{\crosspart,\fourpart\}$.

Representation theory

Cohomology

References

hyperoctahedral_group.txt · Last modified: 2021/11/23 11:56 (external edit)