Algorithm to compute minimal matrix representation of nilpotent lie algebras

ABSTRACT

As it is well-known there exist matrix representations of any given finite-dimensional complex Lie algebra. More concretely, such representations can be obtained by means of an isomorphic matrix Lie algebra consisting of upper-triangular square matrices. However, there is no general information about the minimal order for the matrices involved in such representations. In this way, our main goal is to revisit, debug and implement an algorithm which provides the minimal order for matrix representations of any finite-dimensional nilpotent Lie algebra from its law, as well as returning a matrix representative of such an algebra by using the minimal order previously computed. In order to show the applicability of this procedure, we have computed minimal representative for each nilpotent Lie algebra of dimensions 6 and 7 and we have also obtained the representation of some families with an arbitrary dimension.

KEYWORDS:

• Nilpotent Lie algebra
• faithful matrix representation
• minimal representation
• symbolic computation
• non-numerical algorithm

2000 MATHEMATICS SUBJECT CLASSIFICATIONS:

• 17 B 30
• 17 B 05
• 17–08
• 68W30
• 68W05

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work has been partially supported by Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología MTM2013-40455-P, MTM2016-75024-P and FEDER.