Maurer-Cartan form involved in Lie bracket

center o bass
Messages
545
Reaction score
2
The Maurer-Cartan one-form ##\Theta = g^{-1} dg## is though of as a lie algebra valued form.
It arises in connection with Yang-Mill's theory where the gauge potential transforms as
$$A \mapsto g Ag^{-1} - g^{-1} dg.$$

However, one also defines for lie-algebra valued differential forms ##\alpha, \beta \in \Omega_p(M,\mathfrak g)##, the Lie bracket
$$[\alpha, \beta] = [\xi_k, \xi_l] \alpha^k \wedge \beta^l.$$

The question then arise, what does one mean by the lie-bracket when ##g^{-1} dg## is involved?
For example, how would one compute
$$[g^{-1} dg, g\alpha g^{-1}],$$
for a lie algebra valued form ##\alpha##?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
I'm sorry you are not generating any responses at the moment. Is there any additional information you can share with us? Any new findings?
 
Hi,

An exterior product exists on the exterior algebra of vector space valued differential forms only if the vectorspace carries in addition the structure of an algebra.

Let G be a lie group and \varOmega^{*}:=\bigoplus_{r=0}^{dim(G)}\Omega^{r}(G,\mathfrak{g})
the exterior algebra of the associated lie algebra valued differential forms. If so, the exterior product is defined by

[\alpha,\beta](v_{1},\ldots,v_{p},v_{p+1},\ldots,v_{p+q}):=\frac{1}{p!q!}\sum_{\sigma\in S_{p+q}}sign(\sigma)[\alpha(v_{\sigma(1)},\ldots,v_{\sigma(p)}),\beta(v_{\sigma(p+1)},\ldots,v_{\sigma(p+q)})],
So the bracket is not a lie bracket, the bracket denotes the product of the algebra.
 
Last edited:
TamTamTam said:
Hi,

An exterior product exists on the exterior algebra of vector space valued differential forms only if the vectorspace carries in addition the structure of an algebra.

Let G be a lie group and \varOmega^{*}:=\bigoplus_{r=0}^{dim(G)}\Omega^{r}(G,\mathfrak{g})
the exterior algebra of the associated lie algebra valued differential forms. If so, the exterior product is defined by

[\alpha,\beta](v_{1},\ldots,v_{p},v_{p+1},\ldots,v_{p+q}):=\frac{1}{p!q!}\sum_{\sigma\in S_{p+q}}sign(\sigma)[\alpha(v_{\sigma(1)},\ldots,v_{\sigma(p)}),\beta(v_{\sigma(p+1)},\ldots,v_{\sigma(p+q)})],
So the bracket is not a lie bracket, the bracket denotes the product of the algebra.

Correct. So what is your question?
 
lavinia said:
Correct. So what is your question?

The question was asked in the first post.
 
Back
Top