The family of quaternionic quasi-unitary Lie algebras and their central extensions

The family of quaternionic quasi-unitary (or quaternionic unitary Cayley--Klein algebras) is described in a unified setting. This family includes the simple algebras sp(N+1) and sp(p,q) in the Cartan series C_{N+1}, as well as many non-semisimple real Lie algebras which can be obtained from these simple algebras by particular contractions. The algebras in this family are realized here in relation with the groups of isometries of quaternionic hermitian spaces of constant holomorphic curvature. This common framework allows to perform the study of many properties for all these Lie algebras simultaneously. In this paper the central extensions for all quasi-simple Lie algebras of the quaternionic unitary Cayley--Klein family are completely determined in arbitrary dimension. It is shown that the second cohomology group is trivial for any Lie algebra of this family no matter of its dimension.Comment: 17 pages, LaTe

Spherical functions on the de Sitter group

Matrix elements and spherical functions of irreducible representations of the de Sitter group are studied on the various homogeneous spaces of this group. It is shown that a universal covering of the de Sitter group gives rise to quaternion Euler angles. An explicit form of Casimir and Laplace-Beltrami operators on the homogeneous spaces is given. Different expressions of the matrix elements and spherical functions are given in terms of multiple hypergeometric functions both for finite-dimensional and unitary representations of the principal series of the de Sitter group.Comment: 40 page

Trigonometry of 'complex Hermitian' type homogeneous symmetric spaces

This paper contains a thorough study of the trigonometry of the homogeneous symmetric spaces in the Cayley-Klein-Dickson family of spaces of 'complex Hermitian' type and rank-one. The complex Hermitian elliptic CP^N and hyperbolic CH^N spaces, their analogues with indefinite Hermitian metric and some non-compact symmetric spaces associated to SL(N+1,R) are the generic members in this family. The method encapsulates trigonometry for this whole family of spaces into a single "basic trigonometric group equation", and has 'universality' and '(self)-duality' as its distinctive traits. All previously known results on the trigonometry of CP^N and CH^N follow as particular cases of our general equations. The physical Quantum Space of States of any quantum system belongs, as the complex Hermitian space member, to this parametrised family; hence its trigonometry appears as a rather particular case of the equations we obtain.Comment: 46 pages, LaTe

Trigonometry of spacetimes: a new self-dual approach to a curvature/signature (in)dependent trigonometry

A new method to obtain trigonometry for the real spaces of constant curvature and metric of any (even degenerate) signature is presented. The method encapsulates trigonometry for all these spaces into a single basic trigonometric group equation. This brings to its logical end the idea of an absolute trigonometry, and provides equations which hold true for the nine two-dimensional spaces of constant curvature and any signature. This family of spaces includes both relativistic and non-relativistic homogeneous spacetimes; therefore a complete discussion of trigonometry in the six de Sitter, minkowskian, Newton--Hooke and galilean spacetimes follow as particular instances of the general approach. Any equation previously known for the three classical riemannian spaces also has a version for the remaining six spacetimes; in most cases these equations are new. Distinctive traits of the method are universality and self-duality: every equation is meaningful for the nine spaces at once, and displays explicitly invariance under a duality transformation relating the nine spaces. The derivation of the single basic trigonometric equation at group level, its translation to a set of equations (cosine, sine and dual cosine laws) and the natural apparition of angular and lateral excesses, area and coarea are explicitly discussed in detail. The exposition also aims to introduce the main ideas of this direct group theoretical way to trigonometry, and may well provide a path to systematically study trigonometry for any homogeneous symmetric space.Comment: 51 pages, LaTe