Tensor products and tensor algebras

[asub]

Hi all,

What is a good introductory book on tensor products and tensor algebras? For motivation, I have found Tom Coates's http://www.math.harvard.edu/~tomc/math25/tensor.pdf" to be quite helpful, but I would like to do see some examples and do problems to understand it more thoroughly.

My main aim is to be able to construct Clifford algebras by taking quotient of tensor algebras. I have become able to construct Clifford algebras using exterior products (the way Clifford did it) and quadratic spaces. But understanding tensor algebras and using them to create Clifford algebras seems impregnable.

Thanks.

 

[George Jones]

My main aim is to be able to construct Clifford algebras by taking quotient of tensor algebras.

Let V be a finite-dimensional vector space over \mathbb{R} and g: V \times V \rightarrow \mathbb{R} be a non-degenerate bilinear form. Form the the tensor algebra

T = \mathbb{R} \oplus V \oplus V \otimes V \oplus V \oplus V \otimes V \otimes V \oplus ...[/itex]<br /> <br /> and generate an ideal I from g \left( v , v \right) - v \otimes v. Then, the universal Clifford algebra is T/I.<br /> <br /> <blockquote data-attributes="" data-quote="" data-source="" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> I have become able to construct Clifford algebras using exterior products (the way Clifford did it) and quadratic spaces. But understanding tensor algebras and using them to create Clifford algebras seems impregnable. <br /> <br /> Thanks. </div> </div> </blockquote><br /> Try the second edition (1978) of Multilinear Algebra by Greub.