Math 202B: Lecture 4

In this lecture we describe the lattice of subalgebras of \mathcal{F}(X). Our main tool will be a discrete version of the Stone-Weierstrass theorem. Let \mathcal{A} be a subalgebra of \mathcal{F}(X). We say that \mathcal{A} separates X if, for any distinct points x\neq y in X, there is a function A \in \mathcal{A} such that A(x) \neq A(y). It turns out that there is only one separating subalgebra in \mathcal{F}(X).

Theorem 4.1. A subalgebra \mathcal{A} of \mathcal{F}(X) separates X if and only if \mathcal{A}=\mathcal{F}(X).

Proof: One direction is clear: if \mathcal{A}=\mathcal{F}(X), then it contains all the elementary functions. If x,y \in X are distinct, then E_x(x)=1\neq 0=E_x(y).

Now suppose we are given a separating subalgebra \mathcal{A} of \mathcal{F}(X). Let x \in X be an arbitrary point. By hypothesis, for each y \in X\backslash\{x\} there is a function A_{xy} \in \mathcal{A} such that A_{xy}(x) \neq A_{xy}(y), and by centering and scaling we can assume without loss in generality that

A_{xy}(x)=1 \quad\text{and}\quad A_{xy}(y)=0.

Now observe that

E_x = \prod\limits_{y \in X\backslash\{x\}} A_{xy}.

Since each of the factors A_{xy} in this product belongs to \mathcal{A} and \mathcal{A} is closed under products, we obtain E_x \in \mathcal{A}. Since x was arbitrary, \mathcal{A} contains all the elementary functions, and since \mathcal{A} is closed under linear combinations it is equal to \mathcal{F}(X).

-QED

We are now ready to classify the subalgebras of \mathcal{F}(X). This is done by explicitly describing a family of subalgebras, and then using Theorem 2.3 to prove that there are no others apart from these.

Definition 4.1. A partition of X is a set \mathbf{P} of disjoint nonempty subsets of X whose union is X. Each P \in \mathbf{P} is called a block of \mathbf{P}.

The set \Pi(X) of all partitions of X has a natural partial order called refinement order: we declare \mathbf{P} \leq \mathbf{Q} if every block of \mathbf{P} is a union of blocks of \mathbf{Q}. When \mathbf{P} \leq \mathbf{Q} we say that \mathbf{P} is coarser than \mathbf{Q}, or equivalently that \mathbf{Q} is finer than \mathbf{P}. In fact, \Pi(X) is a lattice, and you way wish to think about its greatest lower bound and least upper bound operations, though we do not need these for our purposes. Below is the Hasse diagram of \Pi(X) for X a set of four points.

Image from Wikipedia.

Now observe that associated to every partition \mathbf{P} of X is a subalgebra \mathcal{A}(\mathbf{P}) of \mathcal{F}(X), namely the set of functions on X which are constant on the blocks of \mathbf{P}.

Problem 4.1. Prove that \mathcal{A}(\mathbf{P}) is a subalgebra of \mathcal{F}(X). Furthermore, show that \mathcal{A}(\mathbf{P}) is isomorphic to \mathcal{F}(\mathbf{P}).

We are now ready for the classification of subalgebras of the function algebra \mathcal{F}(X).

Theorem 4.2. If \mathcal{A} is a subalgebra of \mathcal{F}(X), then \mathcal{A}=\mathcal{A}(\mathbf{P}) for some partition \mathbf{P} of X. In particular, every subalgebra of a function algebra is isomorphic to a function algebra.

Proof: The proof is by induction on the cardinality of X. In the base case, X=\{x\} is a singleton set, and \mathcal{F}(X)=\mathcal{F}(\{x\}) is a one-dimensional algebra. The unique partition of X is \mathbf{P}=\{\{x\}\}, and \mathcal{A}(\{\{x\}\}) is the set of functions in \mathcal{F}(\{x\}) which are constant on \{x\}, which is all of \mathcal{F}(\{x\}).

For the induction step, let \mathcal{A} \neq \mathcal{F}(X) be a proper subalgebra of \mathcal{F}(X). Then, by the Stone-Weierstrass theorem, there are distinct points x,y \in X such that A(x)=A(y) for all A \in \mathcal{A}. This means that every function in A is constant on the the two-element set \{x,y\}. Thus, \mathcal{A} is a subalgebra of \mathcal{A}(\mathbf{P}_{xy}), where \mathbf{P}_{xy} is the partition of X with one block \{x,y\} of size two and the remaining blocks of size one. By Problem 3.2, the algebra \mathcal{A}(\mathbf{P}_{xy}) is isomorphic \mathcal{F}(\mathbf{P}_{xy}), and |\mathbf{P}_{xy}|=|X|-1. Thus, by the induction hypothesis, \mathcal{A}=\mathcal{A}(\mathbf{Q}) for \mathbf{Q} a partition of \mathbf{P}_{xy}.

-QED

Problem 4.2. Prove that the number of non-isomorphic subalgebras of \mathcal{F}(X) is |X|.

Math 202B: Lecture 7

We have previously met the function algebra \mathcal{F}(X) of a finite set and the linear algebra \mathcal{L}(V) of a finite-dimensional Hilbert space. In this lecture, we introduce a third family of algebras associated to finite groups. In Math 202B, all groups are finite, so going forward “group” always means “finite group.”

Let G be a group with group law written multiplicatively: for any elements g,h \in G, their product is gh \in G. Since G is a finite set, we can form the algebra \mathcal{F}(G) of functions A \colon G \to \mathbb{C}. As explained in Lecture 3, this function algebra has a natural basis consisting of the elementary functions

E_g(h) = \delta_{gh},\quad g,h \in G

which are orthogonal projections in \mathcal{F}(G). However, the function algebra \mathcal{F}(G) has nothing to do with the group structure of G, so from the point of view of this construction the fact that G is a group and not just a set is irrelevant.

We can use the underlying group structure to define a different algebra \mathcal{C}(G) whose elements are functions A \colon G \to \mathbb{C}, but whose operations differ from those of \mathcal{F}(G) and are defined using the group structure of G. In \mathcal{C}(G), multiplication of functions not defined pointwise, but rather by convolution: we declare

E_gE_h = E_{gh}, \quad g,h \in G.

Thus, the multiplication tensor of \mathcal{C}(G) is not the three-dimensional identity matrix, but rather a two-dimensional object: the multiplication table of G. Thus for any two functions

A = \sum\limits_{g \in G} \alpha_g E_g \quad\text{and}\quad B=\sum\limits_{g \in G}\beta_gE_g,

their convolution product is given by

A*B=\sum\limits_{g,h \in G} \alpha_g\beta_h E_{gh},

which can equivalently be written

AB = \sum\limits_{k \in G} \left(\sum\limits_{gh=k}\alpha_g\beta_h \right)E_k,

or

AB= \sum\limits_{g \in G} \left(\sum\limits_{h \in G}\alpha_{gh^{-1}}\beta_h \right)E_g

or

AB= \sum\limits_{g \in G} \left(\sum\limits_{h \in G}A(gh^{-1})B(h) \right)E_g.

This is very different from the product of A and B viewed as elements of \mathcal{F}(G), which is

AB=\sum\limits_{g \in G} A(g)B(g)E_g.

Similarly, instead of defining conjugation in \mathcal{C}(G) using pointwise using conjugation in \mathbb{C}, we define it using the the natural involution in G, which is taking inverses,

E_g^* = E_{g^{-1}}, \quad g \in G,

and extend this antilinearly,

A^* = \left(\sum\limits_{g \in G} \alpha_g E_g\right)^*=\sum\limits_{g \in G}\bar{\alpha}_g E_{g^{-1}} = \sum\limits_{g \in G} \bar{\alpha}_{g^{-1}}E_g.

This group-theoretic conjugation is indeed antimultiplicative with respect to convolution,

(E_g*E_h)^* = E_{gh}^*=E_{(gh)^{-1}}=E_{h^{-1}g^{-1}} = E_{h^{-1}}*E_{g^{-1}}=E_h^**E_g^*,

as well as involutive,

(E_g^*)^* = E_{g^{-1}}^*=E_{(g^{-1})^{-1}}= E_g.

Finally, the multiplicative unit in \mathcal{C}(G) is I= E_e, where e \in G is the group unit, as opposed to being the constant function equal to 1 on every g \in G, which is the multiplicative unit in \mathcal{F}(G).

Let us record the above as an official definition.

Definition 7.1. The convolution algebra (aka a group algebra) of a group G is the vector space

\mathcal{C}(G) = \{A \colon G \to \mathbb{C}\}

of complex-valued functions on G with multiplication defined by

[AB](g) = \sum\limits_{h \in G}A(gh^{-1})B(h)

and conjugation defined by

[A^*](g) = \overline{A(g^{-1})}.

In summary, \mathcal{F}(G) and \mathcal{C}(G) are exactly the same as vector spaces, but they are different as algebras. In particular, the elementary functions \{E_g \colon g \in G\} are a basis of \mathcal{F}(G) consisting of orthogonal projections, but in \mathcal{C}(G) they form a basis consisting of unitary elements.

Problem 7.1. Prove that if G,H are isomorphic groups then their convolution algebras \mathcal{C}(G) and \mathcal{C}(H) are isomorphic algebras (the converse is false, bonus points if you give a counterexample). Also show that \mathcal{C}(G) is commutative if and only if G is abelian.

To further highlight the difference between \mathcal{C}(G) and \mathcal{F}(G), let us consider their selfadjoint elements. To say that a function A \colon G \to \mathbb{C} is selfadjoint as an element of \mathcal{F}(G) simply means that it is real-valued:

A^*(g) = A(g) \iff \overline{A(g)} = A(g).

However, A being selfadjoint in \mathcal{C}(G) means something else.

Problem 7.2. Prove that in \mathcal{C}(G) we have

A^*(g)=A(g) \iff \overline{A(g^{-1}})=A(g).

To further compare and contrast the function algebra \mathcal{F}(G) and the convolution algebra \mathcal{C}(G), let us consider their subalgebras. From Lecture 3 we know that the lattice of subalgebras of \mathcal{F}(G) is isomorphic to the lattice of partitions of G, which has nothing to do with the group structure on G. On the other hand, we have a subalgebra of \mathcal{C}(G) associated to every subgroup of H of G, defined by

\mathcal{A}(H) = \{A \in \mathcal{C}(g) \colon A(g) = 0 \text{ unless }g \in H\}.

Problem 7.3. Prove that \mathcal{A}(H) is a subalgebra of \mathcal{C}(G), and moreover that \mathcal{A}(H) is isomorphic to \mathcal{C}(H).

This raises the question of whether subalgebras of \mathcal{C}(G) are in bijection with subgroups of G, i.e. whether the lattice of subalgebras of \mathcal{C}(G) is isomorphic to the lattice of subgroups of G, which would be analogous to the situation with function algebras. This is not true in general. Consider the following element of \mathcal{C}(G),

P = \frac{1}{|G|} \sum_{g \in G} E_g,

which is the average of the elementary functions. Equivalently, P\colon G \to \mathbb{C} is the constant function

P(g) = \frac{1}{|G|}, \quad g \in G.

Then P is selfadjoint (make sure you understand why), and also

P^2 = \frac{1}{|G|^2} \sum_{h \in G} \sum_{g \in G} E_gE_h=\frac{1}{|G|^2} \sum_{h \in G} \sum_{g \in G} E_{gh}.

Now, the internal sum is just

\sum_{g \in G} E_{gh} = \sum_{g \in G} E_g,

since multiplying each element g \in G by a fixed group element h \in G just permutes the points of the group (make sure you understand why). Therefore, P^2=P and we conclude that the average of all elementary functions E_g is a projection in \mathcal{C}(G). Now consider the subalgebra of \mathcal{C}(G) generated by the the multiplicative identity I=E_e and P,

\mathcal{A}=\mathrm{alg}\{I,P\} = \{\alpha I + \beta P \colon \alpha,\beta \in \mathbb{C}\}.

Since I,P are linearly independent (make sure you understand why), we have located a two-dimensional subalgebra inside \mathcal{C}(G), for any group G. If G is a group of odd order, Lagrange’s theorem tells us that any subgroup H \leq G must also have odd order, and consequently the subalgebra \mathcal{A}=\mathrm{alt}\{I,P\} cannot be the algebra of functions vanishing outside some subgroup H of G, for then \mathcal{A} would be isomorphic to \mathcal{C}(H) and its dimensions would be the cardinality of H, which is impossible since |H| cannot be even.

Math 202B: Lecture 24

In Lecture 23 we worked out the irreducible representations of the symmetric group S_3 and computed their characters. Proceeding by bare hands becomes difficult quickly since the cardinality of S_n grows very rapidly (indeed, superexponentially) with n.

We can at least answer one natural question, which encouragingly was asked by Yunseong Jung in Lecture 23: is the standard representation of S_n irreducible for all n? If so, we will have three irreducible unitary representations of S_n, namely the trivial and alternating ones, which are one-dimensional, and the standard representation, which is n-1 dimensional. This isn’t much – the number of irreducible representations of S_n is the number of partitions of n, which according to the Hardy-Ramanujan formula is asymptotically

\frac{1}{4\sqrt{3}n}\exp \pi\sqrt{\frac{2}{3}n}

for large n – but it’s better than nothing.

Start with the permutation representation (V,\varphi) of S_n, so V is a Hilbert space with orthonormal basis \{e_x \colon x \in X\}, X=\{1,\dots,n\}, and \varphi \colon S_n \to U(\mathcal{L}(V)) is the group homomorphism defined by

\varphi(g)e_x = e_{g(x)}, \quad g \in S_n,\ x\in X.

The character of the permutation representation of S_n is

\chi^V(g) = \mathrm{Tr} \varphi(g) = \sum\limits_{x\in X} \langle e_x, \varphi(g)e_x \rangle = \sum\limits_{x \in X} \langle e_x,e_{g(x)}\rangle,

so \chi^V(g) is the number of fixed points (i.e. one-cycles) of the permutation g. Therefore,

\langle \chi^V,\chi^V\rangle = \sum\limits_{g \in S_n} |\mathrm{Fix}(g)|^2,

where \mathrm{Fix}(g) \subseteq X is the set of fixed points of g \in S_n. To understand this sum, let us begin with the simpler version without the squares. By Burnside’s Lemma, which is a consequence of the orbit-stabilizer theorem, we have

\frac{1}{|S_n|} \sum\limits_{g \in S_n} |\mathrm{Fix}(g)| = \left|X/S_n\right|,

where X/S_n is the number of orbits of S_n acting on X. Obviously, the number of orbits of S_n acting on X=\{1,\dots,n\} is one, i.e. S_n acts transitively on X, so

\frac{1}{|S_n|} \sum\limits_{g \in S_n} |\mathrm{Fix}(g)| = \left|X/S_n\right|,

which can be interpreted probabilistically as saying that the expected number of fixed points in a uniformly random sample from S_n is one.

We can use a version of the same argument to evaluate \langle \chi^V,\chi^V\rangle. To get the exponent of 2 into the equation, let S_n act on X\times X by g\cdot (x,y)=(g(x),g(y)). Then, we have

(g(x),g(y))=(x,y) \iff g(x) =x \text{ and }g(y)=y,

so that points of X\times X which are fixed by a given g \in S_n are in bijection with pairs of points in X which are fixed by g. Applying Burnside’s Lemma we thus have

\langle \chi^V,\chi^V\rangle = \sum\limits_{g \in S_n} |\mathrm{Fix}(g)|^2=\left|(X \times X)/S_n\right|.

It is not too difficult to determine the number of orbits of S_n acting on X \times X. Indeed, consider any point (x,y) \in X \times X. Either x=y or x \neq y. In the first case, the orbit of (x,y) under S_n consists of all pairs of points with equal coordinates, in the second case it is all pairs of points with distinct coordinates; these two mutually exclusive cases are the only possibilities. We thus have

\frac{1}{|S_n|}\sum\limits_{g \in S_n} |\mathrm{Fix}(g)|^2=2,

which says that the second moment of the random variable Z which gives the number of fixed points in a uniformly random permutation is equal to two. Since \mathbb{E}[Z]=1 and \mathbb{E}[Z^2]=2 you might be tempted to assume that the kth moment of Z is \mathbb{E}[Z^k]=k, but this is wrong and the correct answer is quite a bit more interesting.

For our purposes, all we need is

\langle \chi^V,\chi^V\rangle =2|S_n|.

Let A \in \mathcal{C}(S_n) be the random variable defined by

A(g) = |\mathrm{Fix}(g)|^2.

We conclude from the above that the character \chi^V of the permutation representation of S_n satisfies

\langle \chi,\chi \rangle = 2|S_n|.

Now let W be the one-dimensional subspace of V spanned by e_1+\dots+e_n, which is an irreducible representation of S_n, and let W^\perp be its orthogonal complement, which is the standard representation of S_n. Since V=W \oplus W^\perp, we have \chi^V=\chi^W+\chi^{W^\perp}, and therefore

\langle \chi^V,\chi^V\rangle = \langle \chi^W+\chi^{W^\perp},\chi^W+\chi^{W^\perp}\rangle = \langle \chi^W,\chi^W\rangle + \langle \chi^{W^\perp},\chi^{W^\perp}\rangle,

where we have used character orthogonality to claim

\langle \chi^W\chi^{W^\perp}\rangle = 0

on the grounds that W and W^\perp are non-isomorphic representations of S_n for n>1. Indeed, W is the trivial representation of S_n, in which every permutation acts as the identity on this one-dimensional space. The standard representation W^\perp is the alternating representation of S_n if n=2, and for n>2 its dimension is strictly larger than one.

To finish the argument, write

\langle \chi^W,\chi^W\rangle = \langle \chi^V,\chi^V\rangle - \langle \chi^{W^\perp},\chi^{W^\perp}\rangle=2|S_n|-|S_n| = |S_n|,

where the fact that \langle \chi^{W^\perp},\chi^{W^\perp}\rangle=|S_n| follows from its irreducibility. Likewise, since \langle \chi^W,\chi^W\rangle =|S_n|, the standard representation of the symmetric group is irreducible.

Thankfully, the basic idea in the representation theory of the symmetric groups is very simple: S_{n-1} is a subgroup of S_n (more precisely, S_{n-1} is isomorphic to the subgroup of S_n consisting of all permutations of 1,2, \dots ,n that have n as a fixed point). Thus we have an infinite sequence of nested groups

S_1 \subset S_2 \subset S_3 \subset \dots,

or equivalently an infinite sequence of nested algebras

\mathcal{C}(S_1) \subset \mathcal{C}(S_2) \subset \mathcal{C}(S_3) \subset \dots.

The strategy is therefore to analyze representations of S_n inductively, by understanding how the unitary representations of S_n is related to those of S_{n-1}.

Let \Lambda_n be a set indexing isomorphism classes of irreducible unitary representations of S_n, or equivalently irreducible linear representations of its convolution algebra \mathcal{C}(S_n). For each \lambda \in \Lambda_n, let (V^\lambda,\Phi^\lambda) be a representative of the corresponding isomorphism class. We know \Lambda_n concretely: it is the set of integer partitions of the number n, which also index conjugacy classes in S_n.

Since (V^\lambda,\Phi^\lambda) is irreducible, the image of \mathcal{C}(S_n) in \mathcal{L}(V^\lambda) under \Phi^\lambda is all of \mathcal{L}(V^\lambda), by Burnside’s theorem. On the other hand, viewing S_{n-1} as a subgroup of S_n and hence \mathcal{C}(S_{n-1}) as a subalgebra of \mathcal{C}(S_n), the image of \mathcal{C}(S_{n-1}) in \mathcal{L}(V^\lambda) is not necessarily all of \mathcal{L}(V^\lambda), meaning that V^\lambda is a unitary representation of S_{n-1}, but not necessarily an irreducible one. So viewed as a representation of S_{n-1}, there is an isotypic decomposition

V^\lambda = \bigoplus\limits_{\mu \in \Lambda_{n-1}} \langle V^\mu,V^\lambda\rangle V^\mu,

where the direct sum is over the set \Lambda_{n-1} of partitions of n-1, and \langle V^\mu,V^\lambda is the multiplicity of V^\mu in V^\lambda viewed as a representation of S_{n-1}. The main theorem in the representation theory of the symmetric groups is a strikingly simple description of this isotypic decomposition, which we discuss in Lecture 25.

Math 202B: Lecture 25

Let n \in \mathbb{N} be arbitrary but fixed, and let \Lambda_n denote the set of integer partitions of n, or equivalently the set of Young diagrams with exactly n cells. For each \lambda \in \Lambda_n, let (V^\lambda,\varphi^\lambda) be a representative of the corresponding isomorphism class of irreducible unitary representations of the symmetric group S_n=\mathrm{Aut}X, where X=\{1,\dots,n\} is a set of n-points. Equivalently, (V^\lambda,\Phi^\lambda) is a representative of the equivalence class of irreducible linear representations of the convolution algebra \mathcal{C}(S_n). We will write partitions \lambda \in \Lambda_n as vectors \lambda=(\lambda_1,\dots,\lambda_r) with 1 \leq r \leq n entries, which are weakly decreasing positive integers whose sum is n.

In Lectures 23 and 24 we constructed three irreducible unitary representations of S_n by hand: the trivial and alternating representations, which are one-dimensional, and the standard representation, which is (n-1)-dimensional. An important point is that there is no canonical way to say which of the abstract irreducible representations (V^\lambda,\varphi^\lambda) we should declare to be the standard (or alternating, or trivial) representation. More generally, if we somehow construct another concrete irreducible representation of S_n, then there is no obvious way to say which of the abstractly defined irreducible representations (V^\lambda,\varphi^\lambda). The main result in the representation theory of the symmetric groups is that it is possible to give a concrete construction of each (V^\lambda,\varphi^\lambda) such that the following holds.

Theorem 25.1. (Branching rule) For any \lambda \in \Lambda_n, when we view the irreducible representation (V^\lambda,\varphi^\lambda) of S_n as a representation of S_{n-1}, it becomes a reducible representation whose isotypic decomposition is

V^\lambda = \bigoplus\limits_{\mu \nearrow \lambda} V^\mu,

where the sum is over all \mu \in \Lambda_{n-1} such that \lambda can be obtained from \mu by adding a single cell.

For example, when the irreducible representation V^{(2,2)} of S_4 is viewed as a representation of S_3, where we identify S_3 with the subgroup of S_4 consisting of permutations which have 4 as a fixed point, its decomposition into irreducible representations of S_3 is

V^{(2,2)} \simeq V^{(2,1)},

i.e. it remains irreducible and is isomorphic to the standard representation of S_3. If we instead start with V^{(2,1,1)}, then as a representation of S_3 we have

V^{(2,1,1)} \simeq V^{(2,1)} \oplus V^{(1,1,1)},

the direct sum of the standard and alternating representations.

The main consequence of the branching rule is that the representation theory of the symmetric groups is controlled by an infinite partially ordered set \Lambda called Young’s lattice, which as a set is the disjoint union,

\Lambda= \bigsqcup\limits_{n=1}^\infty \Lambda_n,

i.e. the set of all Young diagrams, with the partial order defined by

\mu \leq \lambda \iff \lambda \text{ can be obtained from }\mu \text{ by adding cells}.

As a consequence, if (V^\lambda,\varphi^\lambda) is any irreducible representation of S_n, then by restricting (n-1) times we get a decomposition of V^\lambda as a direct sum of one-dimensional subspaces, and choosing a unit vector in each gives a basis

\{e_T \colon T \in \mathrm{SYT}(\lambda)\}

of V^\lambda indexed by the set of standard Young tableaux of shape \lambda. These combinatorial objects can either be viewed as increasing paths in the Hasse graph of Young’s lattice from the bottom unicellular diagram up to \lambda in which we add one cell at a time, or as ways of writing the numbers 1,\dots,n in the cells of \lambda such that the numbering increases along rows in columns, thereby encoding such a growth process. Thus as a consequence of the branching rule, we have the following.

Theorem 25.2. The dimension of V^\lambda equals the number of Standard Young Tableaux of shape \lambda.

There is in fact a combinatorial formula for the number of standard Young tableaux of a given shape: it is called the hook length formula, and at least for relatively small Young diagrams it is a useful way to count standard Young tableaux.

More ambitiously, instead of just knowing the dimension of V^\lambda, one would like to have an explicit form for the matrices of the operators \varphi^\lambda(g), g \in S_n, with respect to the branching basis \{e_T \colon T \in \mathrm{SYT}(\lambda)\}. A related question is to calculate the character of this representation, i.e. the function on S_n given by

\chi^\lambda(g) = \mathrm{Tr}\, \rho^\lambda(g), \quad g \in S_n.

Equivalent to this is the problem of computing the central characters \omega^\lambda_\alpha of the class algebra \mathcal{Z}(S_n), where we recall that \omega^\lambda_\alpha is the eigenvalue of an element K_\alpha of the class basis \{K_\alpha \colon \alpha \in \Lambda_n\}. This is an equivalent problem because

\omega_\alpha^\lambda = |C_\alpha|\frac{\chi^\lambda_\alpha}{\dim V^\lambda},

where \chi^\lambda_\alpha is the value of \chi^\lambda(g) on any permutation g \in S_n belonging to the conjugacy class C_\alpha \subseteq S_n. For any Young diagram \lambda and any cell \Box \in \Lambda, define the content c(\Box) of this cell to be its column index minus its row index.

Theorem 25.3. The central character of the conjugacy class of transpositions acting in the irreducible representation V^\lambda is the sum of the contents of the Young diagram \lambda,

\omega^{\lambda}_{(2,1,\dots,1)} = \sum\limits_{\Box \in \lambda} c(\Box).

Math 202B: Lecture 23

Let G be a finite group and let \Lambda be a set parameterizing isomorphism classes of irreducible unitary representations of G. For each \lambda \in \Lambda, let (V^\lambda,\varphi^\lambda) be a representative of the corresponding isomorphism class, and let \chi^\lambda \colon G \to \mathbb{C} be the corresponding irreducible character, i.e. function G \to \mathbb{C} defined by

\chi^\lambda(g), \quad g \in G.

The character basis \{\chi^\lambda \colon \lambda \in \Lambda\} of the class algebra \mathcal{Z}(G) satisfies the orthogonality relations

\langle \chi^\lambda,\chi^\mu\rangle = \sum\limits_{g \in G} \overline{\chi^\lambda(g)}\chi^\mu(g)=\delta_{\lambda\mu}|G|.

In particular, the cardinality of \Lambda is equal to the dimension of \mathcal{Z}(G), which is the number of conjugacy classes in G.

Problem 23.1. Show that that orthogonality of irreducible characters can equivalently be written

\sum\limits_{g \in G} \chi^\lambda(g^{-1})\chi^\mu(g)=\delta_{\lambda\mu}|G|.

Let \{C_\alpha \colon \alpha \in \Lambda\} be the set of conjugacy classes in G. For each \alpha \in \Lambda, let K_\alpha \colon G \to \mathbb{C} be the indicator function of the class C_\alpha. The class basis \{K_\alpha \colon \alpha \in \Lambda\} satisfies the orthogonality relations

\langle K_\alpha,K_\beta\rangle = \delta_{\alpha\beta}|C_\alpha|, \quad \alpha,\beta \in \Lambda.

Writing

\chi^\lambda = \sum\limits_{\alpha \in \Lambda} \chi^\lambda_\alpha K_\alpha

for the expansion of irreducible characters in the class basis, where \chi^\lambda_\alpha denotes \chi^\lambda(g) for any g \in C_\alpha, character orthogonality takes the form

\langle \chi^\lambda,\chi^\mu \rangle = \sum\limits_{\alpha \in \Lambda} \overline{\chi^\lambda_\alpha}\chi^\mu_\alpha|C_\alpha|=\delta_{\lambda\mu}|G|.

Problem 23.2. We say that G is ambivalent if g and g^{-1} are conjugate for every g \in G. If G is ambivalent, prove that

\langle \chi^\lambda,\chi^\mu \rangle = \sum\limits_{\alpha \in \Lambda}\chi^\lambda_\alpha\chi^\mu_\alpha|C_\alpha|=\delta_{\lambda\mu}|G|.

Theorem 23.1. (Dual character orthogonality) For any \alpha,\beta \in \Lambda, we have

\sum\limits_{\lambda \in \Lambda} \overline{\chi^\lambda_\alpha}\chi^\lambda_\beta=\delta_{\alpha\beta}\frac{|G|}{|C_\alpha|}.

Proof: The character table of G is the square matrix

\mathbf{X} = \begin{bmatrix} \chi^\lambda_\alpha \end{bmatrix}_{\alpha,\lambda \in \Lambda},

where we think of \alpha as the column index and \lambda as the row index. The modified character table

\tilde{\mathbf{X}}_G = \begin{bmatrix} \sqrt{\frac{|C_\alpha|}{|G|}}\chi^\lambda_\alpha\end{bmatrix}

is a unitary matrix: the orthonormality of its rows is equivalent to character orthogonality. The transpose of a unitary matrix is again a unitary matrix, and dual character orthogonality is this statement applied to the modified character table of G.

-QED

We will now apply Dual Character Orthogonality to express the multiplication tensor of the class algebra \mathcal{Z}(G), with respect to the class basis, in terms of the irreducible characters of G. This means that we will find a formula for the entries of the three-dimensional array [c_{\alpha\beta\gamma}]_{\alpha,\beta,\gamma \in \Lambda} such that

K_\alpha K_\beta = \sum\limits_{\gamma \in \Lambda} c_{\alpha\beta\gamma} K_\gamma.

Theorem 23.1. For any \alpha,\beta,\gamma \in \Lambda, we have

c_{\alpha\beta\gamma} = \frac{|C_\alpha||C_\beta|}{|G|}\sum\limits_{\lambda \in \Lambda} \frac{\chi^\lambda_\alpha\chi^\lambda_\beta\overline{\chi^\lambda_\gamma}}{\dim V^\lambda}.

Proof: Let (V^\lambda,\Phi^\lambda) be the irreducible linear representation of \mathcal{C}(G) corresponding to \lambda \in \Lambda. On one hand, we have

\Phi^\lambda(K_\alpha K_\beta)=\Phi^\lambda(K_\alpha)\Phi^\lambda(K_\beta)=\omega^\lambda_\alpha\omega^\lambda_\beta I,

where I \in \mathcal{L}(V^\lambda) is the identity operator. On the other hand,

\Phi^\lambda(K_\alpha K_\beta) = \sum\limits_{\gamma \in \Lambda} c_{\alpha\beta\gamma} \Phi^\lambda(K_\gamma)=\left(\sum\limits_{\gamma \in \Lambda} c_{\alpha\beta\gamma} \omega^\lambda_\gamma\right) I.

This gives the equality

\omega^\lambda_\alpha\omega^\lambda_\beta=\sum\limits_{\gamma \in \Lambda} c_{\alpha\beta\gamma} \omega^\lambda_\gamma,

or equivalently

\frac{|C_\alpha||C_\beta|}{\dim V^\lambda}\chi^\lambda_\alpha \chi^\lambda_\beta=\sum\limits_{\gamma \in \Lambda} c_{\alpha\beta\gamma}|C_\gamma|\chi^\lambda_\gamma.

Now we want to extract a particular coefficient on the right hand side. To do so, choose \nu \in \lambda, multiply both sides by \overline{\chi^\lambda_\nu}, and sum over \lambda to obtain

\frac{|C_\alpha||C_\beta|}{|G|}\sum\limits_{\lambda \in \Lambda} \frac{\chi^\lambda_\alpha\chi^\lambda_\beta\overline{\chi^\lambda_\nu}}{\dim V^\lambda} =\sum\limits_{\gamma \in \Lambda} c_{\alpha\beta\gamma}|C_\gamma|\sum\limits_{\lambda \in \Lambda}\chi^\lambda_\gamma\overline{\chi^\lambda_\nu}.

By Dual Character Orthogonality, the sum on the right hand side collapses to a single term, namely

|G|c_{\alpha\beta\nu},

and the result follows.

-QED

We are now in position to generalize the Fourier transform from the convolution algebra \mathcal{C}(G) with G abelian to the class algebra \mathcal{Z}(G) with G arbitrary.

Definition 23.1. The Fourier basis of \mathcal{Z}(G) is defined by

F^\lambda = \frac{\dim V^\lambda}{|G|}\sum\limits_{\alpha \in \Lambda} \overline{\chi^\lambda_\alpha}K_\alpha, \quad \lambda \in \Lambda.

The key feature of this putative basis is the following.

Theorem 23.2. The basis \{F^\lambda \colon \lambda \in \Lambda\} consists of orthogonal projections. In particular, the span of \{F^\lambda \colon \lambda \in \Lambda\} is a subalgebra of \mathcal{Z}(G) isomorphic to the pointwise function algebra \mathcal{F}(\Lambda).

Proof: For any \lambda,\mu \in \Lambda, we have

F^\lambda F^\mu = \frac{\dim V^\lambda}{|G|}\frac{\dim V^\mu}{|G|}\sum\limits_{\alpha \in \Lambda}\sum\limits_{\beta \in \Lambda} \overline{\chi^\lambda_\alpha} \overline{\chi^\mu_\beta} K_\alpha K_\beta=\frac{\dim V^\lambda}{|G|}\frac{\dim V^\mu}{|G|}\sum\limits_{\alpha \in \Lambda}\sum\limits_{\beta \in \Lambda} \sum\limits_{\gamma \in \Lambda}\overline{\chi^\lambda_\alpha} \overline{\chi^\mu_\beta} c_{\alpha\beta\gamma}K_\gamma.

By Theorem 23.1, the right hand side is

\frac{\dim V^\lambda}{|G|}\frac{\dim V^\mu}{|G|}\sum\limits_{\alpha \in \Lambda}\sum\limits_{\beta \in \Lambda} \sum\limits_{\gamma \in \Lambda}\overline{\chi^\lambda_\alpha} \overline{\chi^\mu_\beta} K_\gamma \frac{|C_\alpha||C_\beta|}{|G|}\sum\limits_{\nu \in \Lambda} \frac{\chi^\nu_\alpha\chi^\nu_\beta\overline{\chi^\nu_\gamma}}{\dim V^\nu}.

This quadruple sum over \Lambda can be reorganized as

\frac{\dim V^\lambda \dim V^\mu}{|G|^3}\sum\limits_{\nu \in \Lambda}\frac{1}{\dim V^\nu} \left(\sum\limits_{\alpha \in \Lambda} \overline{\chi^\lambda_\alpha}\chi^\nu_\alpha|C_\alpha| \right)\left(\sum\limits_{\beta \in \Lambda} \overline{\chi^\mu_\beta}\chi^\nu_\beta|C_\beta|\right)\sum\limits_{\gamma \in \Lambda}\overline{\chi^\nu_\gamma}K_\gamma.

Character orthogonality (original, not dual) collapses the sums over \alpha and \beta, leaving

\frac{\dim V^\lambda \dim V^\mu}{|G|}\sum\limits_{\nu \in \Lambda} \frac{1}{\dim V^\nu}\delta_{\lambda\nu}\delta_{\mu\nu}\sum\limits_{\gamma \in \Lambda}\overline{\chi^\nu_\gamma}K_\gamma =\delta_{\lambda\mu} \frac{\dim V^\lambda}{|G|}\sum\limits_{\gamma \in \Lambda}\overline{\chi^\lambda_\gamma}K_\gamma.

-QED

Now, the set \{F^\lambda \colon \lambda \in \Lambda\} is linearly independent since any set of orthogonal projections is independent. What remains to be shown is that it spans the class algebra \mathcal{Z}(G). In the case of an ambivalent group, the Fourier basis is simply a rescaling of the character basis by nonzero (indeed, positive) factors. In the general case we have the following.

Theorem 23.3. For any \alpha \in \Lambda, we have

K_\alpha = |C_\alpha| \sum\limits_{\lambda \in \Lambda}\frac{\overline{\chi^\lambda_\alpha}}{\dim V^\lambda}F^\lambda.

Problem 23.3. Prove Theorem 23.3.

Math 202B: Lecture 22

Let G be a finite group, and let (V,\varphi) be a unitary representation of G. Recall that there is a canonically associated linear representation (V,\Phi) of the convolution algebra \mathcal{C}(G) – if

A = \sum\limits_{g \in G} A(g)E_g

then

\Phi^\lambda(A) = \sum\limits_{g \in G} A(g)\varphi^\lambda(g),

a sum of unitary operators in \mathcal{L}(V^\lambda). Recall also that the class algebra \mathcal{Z}(G), which is by definition the center of \mathcal{C}(G), is the algebra of functions on G which are constant on conjugacy classes, aka central functions.

Theorem 21.1. We have \Phi(A) \in \mathrm{Hom}_{\mathcal{C}(G)}(V,V) if and only if A \in \mathcal{C}(G).

Proof: If A \in \mathcal{Z}(G), then A is a central element in \mathcal{C}(G), i.e.

AB=BA \quad \text{ for all }B \in \mathcal{C}(G).

Since \Phi \colon \mathcal{C}(G) \to \mathcal{L}(V) is an algebra homomorphism, we have

\Phi(A)\Phi(B)=\Phi(AB)=\Phi(BA)=\Phi(B)\Phi(A),

which is exactly the condition for the operator \Phi(A) to be in \mathrm{Hom}_{\mathcal{C}(G)}(V,V).

Problem 21.1. Prove the converse.

-QED

Now suppose the unitary representation (V,\varphi) of G is irreducible. Then, so is the the linear representation (V,\Phi) of \mathcal{C}(G). Thus, Burnside’s theorem tells us that the image of \mathcal{C}(G) under \Phi is all of \mathcal{L}(V). Since the center of \mathcal{L}(V) is precisely the set of scalar operators \omega I, with \omega \in \mathbb{C} and I the identity operator in \mathcal{L}(V), for every A \in \mathcal{Z}(G) we have \Phi(A) = \omega^V(A)I for some \omega^V(A) \in \mathbb{C}. Thus, we have a map

\omega^V\colon \mathcal{Z}(G) \longrightarrow \mathbb{C}

which sends every A \in \mathcal{Z}(G) to the unique eigenvalue \omega^V(A) of the operator \Phi(A) \in \mathcal{L}(V). This map is called the central character of \mathcal{Z}(G) corresponding to the irreducible linear representation (V,\Phi), or equivalently the irreducible unitary representation (V,\varphi).

Problem 21.2. Prove that \omega^V is an algebra homomorphism \mathcal{Z}(G) \to \mathbb{C}, and that

\omega^V(A) = \frac{1}{\dim V}\mathrm{Tr}\, \Phi(A), \quad A \in \mathcal{Z}(G).

Now let \Lambda be a set parameterizing isomorphism classes of irreducible unitary representations of G. For each \lambda \in \Lambda, let (V^\lambda,\varphi^\lambda) be a representative of the isomorphism class of unitary irreps corresponding to \lambda, and let

\chi^\lambda(g) = \mathrm{Tr}\, \varphi^\lambda(g), \quad g \in G,

be the corresponding character. Then \chi^\lambda is a central function on G, and we have shown that \{\chi^\lambda \colon \lambda \in \Lambda\} is an orthogonal set in \mathcal{Z}(G), i.e.

\langle \chi^\lambda,\chi^\mu\rangle= \sum\limits_{g \in G} \overline{\chi^\lambda(g)}\chi^\mu(g) = \delta_{\lambda\mu}|G|.

We will now show that the set \{\chi^\lambda \colon \lambda \in \Lambda\} of irreducible characters of G is in fact a basis of the class algebra \mathcal{Z}(G).

Theorem 22.2. The orthogonal set \{\chi^\lambda \colon \lambda \in \Lambda\} spans \mathcal{Z}(G).

Proof: Let W=\mathrm{Span} \{\chi^\lambda \colon \lambda \in \Lambda\} be the subspace of \mathcal{Z}(G) spanned by the irreducible characters of G. We want to show that W=\mathcal{Z}(G). We will do this by showing that W^\perp = \{0\}. In other words, the only central function on G orthogonal to every irreducible character is the zero function.

Suppose

A = \sum\limits_{g \in G} A(g)E_g

is a central function on G such that

\langle A,\chi^\lambda \rangle = \sum\limits_{g \in G} \overline{A(g)}\chi^\lambda(g) =0

for all \lambda \in \Lambda. For each \lambda \in \Lambda, let \omega^\lambda be the central character of \mathcal{Z}(G) corresponding to (V^\lambda,\Phi^\lambda), and let

\overline{A} =\sum\limits_{g \in G} \overline{A(g)}E_g,

which is again a central function on G. We then have

\omega^\lambda(\bar{A}) = \frac{1}{\dim V^\lambda} \mathrm{Tr}\, \Phi^\lambda(\overline{A})=\frac{1}{\dim V^\lambda} \mathrm{Tr}\, \sum\limits_{g \in G} \overline{A(g)} \varphi^\lambda(g)=\frac{1}{\dim V^\lambda} \sum\limits_{g \in G} \overline{A(g)} \chi^\lambda(g)=0.

Thus, our hypothesis that A \in \mathcal{Z}(G) is orthogonal to all irreducible characters of G forces \Phi^\lambda(\bar{A}) to be the zero operator in \mathcal{L}(V^\lambda) for every \lambda \in \Lambda. Since every linear representation of \mathcal{C}(G) is isomorphic to a direct sum of irreducible representations (isotypic decomposition, Lecture 20), this says that the image of A is the zero operator in every linear representation of \mathcal{C}(G). This includes the regular representation of \mathcal{C}(G), which is faithful – the image of \mathcal{C}(G) in the regular representation is isomorphic to \mathcal{C}(G). We conclude that \bar{A}, and hence A itself, is the zero function on G, i.e. the zero element of \mathcal{Z}(G).

-QED

Now we know that the number of isomorphism classes of irreducible unitary representations of G is exactly equal to the number of conjugacy classes in G. Thus, our set \Lambda indexing the isomorphism classes of irreps of G also indexes the conjugacy classes in G. This gives us two orthogonal bases of the class algebra \mathcal{Z}(G).

First, let \{C_\alpha \colon \alpha \in \Lambda\} be the set of conjugacy classes of \mathcal{Z}(G). For each \alpha \in \Lambda, let K_\alpha \in \mathcal{Z}(G) be the indicator function of C_\alpha, i.e.

K_\alpha(g) = \begin{cases} 1, \text{ if } g\in C_\alpha \\ 0, \text{ if }g \not\in C_\alpha \end{cases}.

Then, for every central function A \colon G \to \mathbb{C} we have

A = \sum\limits_{\alpha \in \Lambda} A(\alpha) K_\alpha,

where A(\alpha) denotes the value of A(g) for any group element g \in C_\alpha. Thus, the functions \{K_\alpha \colon \alpha \in \Lambda\} span \mathcal{Z}(G). Moreover, we have

\langle K_\alpha,K_\beta \rangle = \langle \sum\limits_{g \in C_\alpha} E_g,\sum\limits_{g \in C_\beta}E_g \rangle = \sum\limits_{g\in C_\alpha}\sum\limits_{h \in C_\beta} \langle E_g,E_h\rangle = \delta_{\alpha\beta}|C_\alpha|,

where the final equality follows from the fact that C_\alpha and C_\beta are the same set if \alpha=\beta, and disjoint if \alpha \neq \beta.

We now have two orthogonal bases in \mathcal{Z}(G).

The character basis of \mathcal{Z}(G) is defined by

E^\lambda = \sum\limits_{\alpha \in \Lambda} \chi^\lambda_\alpha K_\alpha, \quad \lambda \in \Lambda,

and since

|\{E^\lambda \colon \lambda \in \Lambda\}|=|\{K^\alpha \colon \alpha \in \Lambda\}|,

in order to show that the character basis is indeed an orthogonal basis of \mathcal{Z}(G) we only need to prove its orthogonality.

Theorem 22.3. The set \{E^\lambda \colon \lambda \in \Lambda\} is orthogonal in \mathcal{Z}(G).

Proof: For \lambda,\mu \in \Lambda, we have

\langle E^\lambda,E^\mu\rangle = \sum\limits_{\alpha,\beta \in \Lambda} \overline{\chi^\lambda_\alpha}\chi^\mu_\beta \langle K_\alpha,K_\beta\rangle = \sum\limits_{\alpha \in \Lambda} \overline{\chi^\lambda_\alpha}\chi^\mu_\alpha|C_\alpha|=\sum\limits_{g \in G}\overline{\chi^\lambda(g)}\chi^\mu(g)=\delta_{\lambda\mu}|G|,

where the final equality is the original formulation of orthogonality of irreducible characters in \mathcal{Z}(G).

-QED

At this point, we are very close to constructing a Fourier basis of \mathcal{Z}(G) – we will see next time that the functions

F^\lambda = \frac{|C_\lambda|}{|G|}E^\lambda, \quad \lambda \in \Lambda

are orthogonal projections,

F^\lambda F^\mu = \delta_{\lambda\mu}F^\lambda, \quad \lambda,\mu \in \Lambda,

so that \mathcal{Z}(G) is isomorphic to the pointwise function algebra \mathcal{F}(\Lambda), extending our result from the case of abelian groups, where \mathcal{Z}(G)=\mathcal{C}(G).

Math 202B: Lecture 21

Please complete a course evaluation for Math 202B if you have time to do so. Student input is helpful and valuable.

Let \Lambda be a set parameterizing the isomorphism classes of irreducible unitary representations of a finite group G. For each \lambda \in \Lambda, let (V^\lambda,\rho^\lambda) be a representative of the isomorphism class of irreps corresponding to \lambda. The character of (V^\lambda,\rho^\lambda) is the central function \chi^\lambda \colon G \to \mathbb{C} defined by

\chi^\lambda(g) = \mathrm{Tr}\, \rho^\lambda(g), \quad g \in G.

Last time, we proved that \{\chi^\lambda \colon \lambda \in \Lambda\} is an orthogonal set in the class algebra \mathcal{Z}(G), which is the center of the convolution algebra \mathcal{C}(G). Specifically, we have

\langle \chi^\lambda,\chi^\mu\rangle = \sum\limits_{g \in G} \overline{\chi^\lambda(g)} \chi^\mu(g) = \delta_{\lambda\mu}|G|.

This tells us that |\Lambda| \leq \dim \mathcal{Z}(G), i.e. that the number of irreducible unitary representations of G (up to isomorphism) is at most the number of conjugacy classes in G. Today, we will develop additional consequences of character orthogonality.

Let (V,\varphi) be any unitary representation of G, not necessarily irreducible. Let (V,\Phi) be the corresponding linear representation of \mathcal{C}(G),

\Phi(A) = \Phi\left(\sum\limits_{g\in G} \alpha_g E_g \right) = \sum\limits_{g \in G} \alpha_g \varphi(g).

Let \mathcal{A} be the image of the convolution algebra \mathcal{C}(G) under \Phi. This is a subalgebra of the linear algebra \mathcal{L}(V), and by Maschke’s theorem there is a linear partition \mathbf{W} of V,

V = \bigoplus_{W \in \mathbf{W} } W,

whose blocks are \mathcal{A}-invariant and \mathcal{A}-irreducible subspaces. Each block W \in \mathbf{W} may thus be regarded as a unitary representation (W,\varphi^W) of G, where \varphi^W(g) \in U(\mathcal{L}(W)) is the restriction of \varphi(g) \in U(\mathcal{L}(V)) to the subspace W \leq V. Since (W,\varphi^W) is an irreducible unitary representation of G, it must be isomorphic to (V^\lambda,\rho^\lambda) for some \lambda \in \Lambda. Thus, the linear partition of V into \mathcal{A}-invariant, \mathcal{A}-irreducible subpsaces yields an isomorphism of unitary representations

V \simeq \bigoplus\limits_{\lambda \in \Lambda} \mathrm{Mult}_{\mathbf{W}}(V^\lambda,V) V^\lambda,

where \mathrm{Mult}_{\mathbf{W}}(V^\lambda,V) is the number of blocks of the linear partition \mathbf{W} which are isomorphic to V^\lambda, and

\mathrm{Mult}_{\mathbf{W}}(V^\lambda,V) V^\lambda = \underbrace{V^\lambda \oplus \dots \oplus V^\lambda}_{\mathrm{Mult}_{\mathbf{W}}(V^\lambda,V)\text{ times}}.

Theorem 21.1. We have

\mathrm{Mult}_{\mathbf{W}}(V^\lambda,V)  =\frac{1}{|G|} \langle \chi^\lambda,\chi^V\rangle.

Note that the right hand side has no dependence on the linear partition \mathbf{W}.

Proof: Since isomorphic representations have the same character (proved in Lecture 20), we have

\chi^V = \sum\limits_{\mu \in \Lambda} \mathrm{Mult}_{\mathbf{W}}(V^\lambda,V)\chi^\mu,

which is an equality of functions in \mathcal{Z}(G). Thus, for any \lambda \in \Lambda we have

\langle \chi^\lambda,\chi^V \rangle = \sum\limits_{\mu \in \Lambda} \mathrm{Mult}_{\mathbf{W}}(V^\lambda,V) \chi^\lambda,\chi^\mu\rangle = |G| \mathrm{Mult}_{\mathbf{W}}(V^\lambda,V),

where the second equality follows from \langle \chi^\lambda,\chi^\mu\rangle = \delta_{\lambda\mu}|G|.

-QED

As a consequence of Theorem 21.1, we can make the following important definition.

Definition 21.1. The isotypic decomposition of a unitary representation (V,\varphi) of a finite group G is

V \simeq \bigoplus_{\lambda \in \Lambda} \langle V^\lambda,V\rangle V^\lambda,

where \langle V^\lambda,V\rangle is the multiplicity of V^\lambda in V.

Note that the multiplicity \langle V^\lambda,V\rangle is a nonnegative integer and not literally a scalar product. The reason to write multiplicities in this suggestive way is to bring out an analogy with the Fourier basis \{F^\lambda \colon \lambda \in \Lambda\} of the convolution algebra of \mathcal{C}(G) of an abelian group G, where the unitary dual \Lambda of G simultaneously parameterizes homomorphisms from G to the unit circle and elements of G itself. In the abelian case we have

A =\frac{1}{|G|}\sum\limits_{\lambda \in \Lambda} \langle \chi^\lambda,A\rangle F^\lambda,

making the Fourier decomposition of a function appear similar to the isotypic decomposition of a representation.

Theorem 21.2. Two unitary representations (V,\varphi) and (W,\psi) of G are isomorphic if and only if \chi^V = \chi^W.

Proof: We showed in Lecture 20 that isomorphic representations have the same character. For the converse, suppose \chi^V=\chi^W. Let

V \simeq \bigoplus\limits_{\lambda \in \Lambda} \langle V^\lambda,V\rangle V^\lambda\quad\text{and}\quad W \simeq \bigoplus\limits_{\lambda \in \Lambda} \langle V^\lambda,W\rangle V^\lambda

be their isotypic decompositions. Then by Theorem 21.1 we have

\chi^V =\sum\limits_{\lambda \in \Lambda} \langle \chi^\lambda,\chi^V\rangle \chi^\lambda\quad\text{and}\quad \chi^W = \sum\limits_{\lambda \in \Lambda} \langle \chi^\lambda,\chi^W\rangle \chi^\lambda,

and hence the hypothesis \chi^V=\chi^W implies

\sum\limits_{\lambda \in \Lambda} \langle \chi^\lambda,\chi^V\rangle \chi^\lambda = \sum\limits_{\lambda \in \Lambda} \langle \chi^\lambda,\chi^W\rangle \chi^\lambda.

Since \{\chi^\lambda \colon \lambda \in \Lambda\} is a linearly independent set in \mathcal{Z}(G), this forces

\langle \chi^\lambda,\chi^V\rangle = \langle \chi^\lambda,\chi^W\rangle, \quad \lambda \in \Lambda.

Thus, the isotypic decompositions of the representations (V,\varphi) and (W,\psi) are the same, and therefore these representations are isomorphic.

-QED

Theorem 21.3. A unitary representation (V,\varphi) of G is irreducible if and only if \langle \chi^V,\chi^V\rangle=|G|.

Proof: We have already proved one direction of this result: for any \lambda \in \Lambda, we have \langle \chi^\lambda,\chi^\lambda\rangle=|G|. For the converse, suppose it is the case that \langle \chi^V,\chi^V\rangle=|G|. Let

V \simeq \bigoplus_{\lambda \in \Lambda} \langle V^\lambda,V\rangle V^\lambda

be the isotypic decomposition of V, so that

\chi^V \simeq \bigoplus_{\lambda \in \Lambda} \langle V^\lambda,V\rangle \chi^\lambda.

We then have

\langle \chi^V,\chi^V\rangle = \sum\limits_{\lambda,\mu \in \Lambda} \overline{\langle V^\lambda,V\rangle}\langle V^\mu,V\rangle \langle \chi^\lambda,\chi^\mu\rangle=|G|\sum\limits_{\lambda\in \Lambda} |\langle V^\lambda,V\rangle|^2,

so the hypothesis \langle \chi^V,\chi^V\rangle=|G| forces

\sum\limits_{\lambda\in \Lambda} |\langle V^\lambda,V\rangle|^2=1.

This in turn means that the sum \sum\limits_{\lambda\in \Lambda} |\langle V^\lambda,V\rangle|^2 has exactly one term equal to one and all other terms equal to zero, so that the isotypic decomposition of V is V\simeq V^\lambda for some \lambda \in \Lambda.

-QED

As you may recall from some lectures back, every finite group G has a distinguished unitary representation, namely the regular representation (\mathcal{C}(G),\rho) in which \mathcal{C}(G) is viewed as a Hilbert space with the \ell^2-scalar product and

\varphi(g)A = E_gA, \quad g \in G.

Explicitly, this is the function on G given by

[E_gA](h) = \sum\limits_{k \in G}E_g(k)A(k^{-1}h) = A(g^{-1}h), \quad h \in G.

Another description of the regular representation is to say how \varphi(g) acts on the group basis of \mathcal{C}(G),

\varphi(g)E_h = E_gE_h= E_{gh}, \quad h \in G.

Problem 21.2. Compute the isotypic decomposition

\mathcal{C}(G) = \bigoplus\limits_{\lambda \in \Lambda} \langle V^\lambda,\mathcal{C}(G)\rangle V^\lambda

of the regular representation. It is quite important that you solve this problem, because we will use the result. To get started, compute the character of the regular representation.

Math 202B: Lecture 20

Please complete a course evaluation for Math 202B if you have time to do so. Student input is helpful and valuable.

Let (V,\varphi) and (W,\psi) be unitary representations of a finite group G. Let \chi^V,\chi^W\in \mathcal{C}(G) be their characters, i.e. the functions G \to \mathbb{C} defined by

\chi^V(g) = \mathrm{Tr}\, \varphi(g)\quad\text{and}\quad\chi^W(g) = \mathrm{Tr}\, \psi(g), \quad g \in G.

Since \chi^V and \chi^W are defined using the trace, they are central functions on G: we have

\chi^V(gh) = \mathrm{Tr}\, \varphi(gh) = \mathrm{Tr}\, \varphi(hg)=\chi^V(hg), \quad g,h \in G,

and similarly \chi^W(gh)=\chi^W(hg). Thus, \chi^V and \chi^W belong to the class algebra \mathcal{Z}(G), which as you will recall is the center of the convolution algebra \mathcal{C}(G), or equivalently the subalgebra of \mathcal{C}(G) spanned by functions on G which are constant on the conjugacy classes of G.

Furthermore, observe that if (V,\varphi) and (W,\psi) are isomorphic, then their characters are equal: we have \chi^V(g)=\chi^W(g). Indeed, if these representations are isomorphic, then (by definition) there is a unitary vector space isomorphism T \colon V \to W which has the additional property that the equation

T\varphi(g) = \psi(g)T

holds in \mathrm{Hom}(V,W), for every g \in G. Equivalently, this is \psi(g) = T\varphi(g)T^*, whence

\chi^W(g) = \mathrm{Tr}\, \psi(g) = \mathrm{Tr}\, T\varphi(g)T^* = \mathrm{Tr}\, \varphi(g)T^*T = \mathrm{Tr}\, \varphi(g) = \chi^V(g).

Now let \Lambda be a set parameterizing isomorphism classes of irreducible unitary representations of G. At present we know nothing about \Lambda, and in particular we do not know whether or not it is finite. For each \lambda \in \Lambda, let (V^\lambda,\rho^\lambda) be a representative of the isomorphism class of irreducible unitary representations of G labeled by \lambda, and write \chi^\lambda for the character of this representation. Thus, we have a possibly infinite family of central functions on G,

\chi^\lambda, \quad \lambda \in \Lambda,

which are in bijection with isomorphism classes of irreducible unitary representations of G.

Theorem 20.1. \{\chi^\lambda \colon \lambda \in \Lambda\} is an orthogonal set in \mathcal{Z}(G).

Proof: For any \lambda,\mu \in \Lambda, the corresponding scalar product is

\langle \chi^\lambda,\chi^\mu\rangle = \sum\limits_{g \in G} \overline{\chi^\lambda(g)} \chi^\mu(g).

In Lecture 19, we proved that this scalar product is

\langle \chi^\lambda,\chi^\mu\rangle = |G| \dim \mathrm{Hom}_G(V,W).

Since (V^\lambda,\rho^\lambda) and (V^\mu,\rho^\mu) are irreducible representations, Schur’s Lemma tells us that

\dim \mathrm{Hom}_G(V^\lambda,V^\mu) = \delta_{\lambda\mu}.

We conclude that

\langle \chi^\lambda,\chi^\mu \rangle = \delta_{\lambda\mu}|G|.

-QED

Theorem 20.1 has many consequences. The first of these is that a finite group G has finitely many irreducible representations, up to isomorphism.

Theorem 20.2. The number of isomorphism classes of irreducible unitary representations of G is at most the class number of G.

Proof: Recall that the class number of G is the number of conjugacy classes in G, or equivalently the dimension of the class algebra \mathcal{Z}(G). According to Theorem 20.1, the set \{\chi^\lambda \colon \lambda \in \Lambda\} is orthogonal in \mathcal{Z}(G), therefore it is linearly independent and its cardinality is bounded by the dimension of \mathcal{Z}(G).

-QED

We have now established the bound |\Lambda| \leq \dim \mathcal{Z}(G). We will see next lecture that in fact equality holds: up to isomorphism, the number of irreducible unitary representations of G is equal to the number of conjugacy classes in G.

Math 202B: Lecture 6

Let \mathcal{L}(V) be the linear algebra of a Hilbert space V of dimension at least two. We have seen that there does not exist an algebra homomorphism \mathcal{L}(V) \to \mathbb{C}. This suggests that the commutativity index of \mathcal{L}(V) is very low, or equivalently that its noncommutativity index is very high. To make this precise, we want to determine the center of \mathcal{L}(V).

Definition 6.1. Given a subalgebra \mathcal{A} of \mathcal{L}(V), a subspace W of V is said to be \mathcal{A}invariant if for every A \in \mathcal{A} and every w \in W we have Aw \in W.

Proposition 6.1. If W \leq V is an \mathcal{L}(V)-invariant subspace, then either W=\{0_V\} or W=V.

Problem 6.1. Prove Proposition 6.1.

Theorem 6.2. The center of \mathcal{L}(V) is the set \mathbb{C}I of scalar operators.

Proof: Let Z \in \mathcal{L}(V) be a central element, and let \zeta \in \mathrm{Spec}(Z) be an eigenvalue of Z. By definition, this means that \zeta I-Z is not invertible in \mathcal{L}(V), which is equivalent to saying that \mathrm{Ker}(\zeta I-Z) is a nonzero subspace of V. We claim that, because Z is a central element in \mathcal{L}(V), the \zeta-eigenspace of Z is \mathcal{L}(V)-invariant. Indeed, for any v \in \mathrm{Ker}(\zeta I-Z) we have

ZAv = AZv =\zeta Av,

which shows that Av is again in the \zeta-eigenspace of Z. Since this space has positive dimension, Proposition 6.1 forces \mathrm{Ker}(\zeta I-Z)=V, so that Zv = \zeta v for every v \in V.

-QED

Having understood the center of \mathcal{L}(V), let us consider arbitrary commutative subalgebras of \mathcal{L}(V). These can be understood using the Spectral Theorem from Math 202A, which may be stated as follows.

Theorem 6.3. If A_1,\dots,A_m \in \mathcal{L}(V) are commuting normal operators, then there exists an orthonormal basis X \subset V such that A_1,\dots,A_m \in \mathcal{D}(X).

Since \mathcal{D}(X) is isomorphic to \mathcal{F}(X), we can combine the above formulation of the Spectral Theorem with the characterization of commutative algebras obtained in Lecture 1 and the classification of subalgebras of function algebras obtained in Lecture 3 to prove the following.

Theorem 6.4. Every commutative subalgebra of \mathcal{L}(V) is isomorphic to a function algebra.

Proof: Let \mathcal{A} be a subalgebra of \mathcal{L}(V). Since \mathcal{A} is a vector space, it has a basis A_1,\dots,A_m, where 1 \leq m \leq (\dim V)^2. If \mathcal{A} is commutative, all of its elements are normal (Theorem 1.3 in Lecture 1), and the basis A_1,\dots,A_m of \mathcal{A} consists of commuting normal operators. By Theorem 6.3, there exists an orthonormal basis X \subset V such that A_1,\dots,A_m \in \mathcal{D}(X), and therefore \mathcal{A} is a subalgebra of \mathcal{D}(X). Since \mathcal{D}(X) is isomorphic to the function algebra \mathcal{F}(X), and since every subalgebra of \mathcal{F}(X) is isomorphic to a function algebra (Lecture 3), it follows that \mathcal{A} is isomorphic to a function algebra.

In fact, we can be more precise (though we don’t need to be): \mathcal{A} is isomorphic to \mathcal{F}(\mathbf{P}) for some partition \mathbf{P} of X, and we can describe this partition in terms of the eigenspaces of the commuting normal operators A_1,\dots,A_m. Namely, each of the operators A_i, 1 \leq i \leq m induces a partition \mathbf{P}_i of X such that x,y \in X belong to the same block of \mathbf{P}_i if and only if they belong to the same eigenspace of A_i. Letting \mathbf{P}=\max(\mathbf{P}_1,\dots,\mathbf{P}_m) be the coarsest partition of X finer than all of the \mathbf{P}_i‘s, a little thought reveals that \mathcal{A} is isomorphic to \mathcal{F}(\mathbf{P}).

-QED

As we have just seen, for any commutative subalgebra \mathcal{A} of \mathcal{L}(V) the spectral theorem guarantees a corresponding decomposition of V into a direct sum of orthogonal one-dimensional subspaces on which \mathcal{A} acts diagonally. If \mathcal{A} is a noncommutative subalgebra of \mathcal{L}(V), this is no longer the case. Nevertheless, we can consider the set of all \mathcal{A}-invariant subspaces of V, which is an induced sublattice of the lattice of all subspaces of V, since the intersection of two \mathcal{A}-invariant subspaces is again \mathcal{A}-invariant, and likewise the span of the union of two \mathcal{A}-invariant subspaces is again \mathcal{A}-invariant (exercise: check these statements). For any subalgebra \mathcal{A} \leq \mathcal{L}(V), the lattice of \mathcal{A}-invariant subspaces contains at least \{0_V\} and V. An important theorem of Burnside characterizes subalgebras of \mathcal{L}(V) for which this minimum is achieved.

Theorem 6.5. (Burnside) A subalgebra \mathcal{A} of \mathcal{L}(V) has exactly two invariant subspaces if and only if \mathcal{A}=\mathcal{L}(V).

Proof: An elementary proof of Burnside’s theorem by induction in the dimension of V can be found here.

-QED

Corollary 6.6. A proper subalgebra \mathcal{A} of \mathcal{L}(V) has at least four invariant subspaces.

Proof: The zero space and the total space are \mathcal{A}-invariant, and since \mathcal{A} \neq \mathcal{L}(V) there is a third \mathcal{A}-invariant subspace \{0_V\} < W < \mathcal{L}(V), by Burnside’s theorem. The orthogonal complement W^\perp of W is again a nonzero proper subspace of V, and we claim it is \mathcal{A}-invariant. Indeed, let x \in W^\perp and A \in \mathcal{A}. Then, for any w \in W we have

\langle w,Ax \rangle = \langle A^*w,x \rangle = 0,

where we used the fact that W is \mathcal{A}-invariant. This shows Ax \in W^\perp, i.e. W^\perp is \mathcal{A}-invariant.

– QED

We can attempt to classify subalgebras of \mathcal{L}(V) by adapting our approach to the classification of subalgebras of \mathcal{F}(X), where we looked at subalgebras of \mathcal{F}(X) corresponding to partitions of the set X. To emulate this approach, we need the Hilbert space analogue of a set partition, in which “nonempty” is replaced with “nonzero” and “disjoint” becomes “orthogonal.”

Definition 6.2. A linear partition of V is a set \mathbf{W} of nonzero pairwise orthogonal subspaces of V whose union spans V. We refer to the subspaces W \in \mathsf{W} as the blocks of \mathbf{W}, and write

V = \bigoplus\limits_{W \in \mathsf{W}} W.

Given a linear partition \mathbf{W} of V, we define \mathcal{A}(\mathbf{W}) to be the set of all operators A \in \mathcal{L}(V) such that every block W \in \mathbf{W} is A-invariant.

Problem 6.2. Prove that \mathcal{A}(\mathbf{W}) is a subalgebra of \mathcal{L}(V).

Here our construction starts to diverge from what we saw in the setting of function algebras: unless \mathbf{W}=\{V\} is the linear partition of V consisting of a single block, in which case \mathcal{A}(\mathbf{W})=\mathcal{L}(V), the subalgebra \mathcal{A}(\mathbf{W}) is definitely not isomorphic to the algebra of all linear operators on a Hilbert space. Indeed, consider the case where \mathbf{W}=\{W_1,W_2\} is a linear partition of V with two blocks, i.e. V = W_1 \oplus W_2. Let e_1,\dots,e_m be an ordered basis of W_1, and let f_1,\dots,f_n be an ordered basis of W_2. Then e_1,\dots,e_m,f_1,\dots,f_n is an ordered basis of V, and \mathcal{A}(\mathbf{W}) consists of all operators in A\in \mathcal{L}(V) whose matrix relative to this ordered basis has the form

[A]_{(e_1,\dots,e_m,f_1,\dots,f_n)}=\begin{bmatrix} M_1 & {} \\ {} & M_2 \end{bmatrix},

with M_1 \in \mathbb{C}^{m \times m} and M_2 \in \mathbb{C}^{n\times n}. Thus, \mathcal{A}(\{W_1,W_2\}) is not isomorphic to a linear algebra, but rather to a direct sum of linear algebras,

\mathcal{A}(\{W_1,W_2\}) = \mathcal{L}(W_1) \oplus \mathcal{L}(W_2).

The question now is whether the above can reversed: given a subalgebra \mathcal{A} of \mathcal{L}(V), does there exist a linear partition \mathbf{W} such that \mathcal{A}=\mathcal{A}(\mathbf{W})? If \mathcal{A}=\mathcal{L}(V), the answer is clearly “yes” since we have \mathcal{L}(V) = \mathcal{A}(\{V\}). Thus we consider the case where \mathcal{A} is a proper subalgebra of \mathcal{L}(V). Our starting point is Burnside’s theorem, which guarantees the existence of an \mathcal{A}-invariant subspace \{0_V\} < W < V. Together with the corollary to Burnside’s theorem, we thus have a linear partition \mathbf{W} = \{W,W^\perp\} of V whose blocks are \mathcal{A}-invariant. We now ask whether W has a proper non-trivial subspace invariant under \mathcal{A}. If it does we can split it into the orthogonal direct sum of two smaller \mathcal{A}-invariant subspaces; if not W is said to be \mathcal{A}irreducible. Continuing this process, for both W and W^\perp, we get the following.

Theorem 6.7. (Maschke’s theorem) There exists a linear partition \mathbf{W} of V whose blocks are \mathcal{A}-invariant and \mathcal{A}-irreducible subspaces.

Now consider the linear partition \mathbf{W} of V into \mathcal{A}-invariant, \mathcal{A}-irreducible subspaces we have constructed. It is tempting to hope that \mathcal{A} = \mathcal{A}(\mathsf{W}). Unfortunately, this is not quite correct. For example, consider the case where V is a Hilbert space of even dimension 2n. Let X=\{y_1,\dots,y_n,z_1,\dots,z_n\} be an othornormal basis of V, and consider the set \mathcal{A} of all operators A \in \mathcal{L}(V) such that

\langle x_i,Ax_j \rangle = \langle y_i,Ay_j \rangle, \quad 1 \leq i,j \leq N.

Then \mathcal{A} is a subalgebra of \mathcal{L}(V) – it consists of all operators whose matrix in the basis X is block diagonal with two identical blocks. Now V=W \oplus W^\perp, where W= \mathrm{Span}\{x_1,\dots,x_n\} and W^\perp = \mathrm{Span}\{y_1,\dots,y_n\}, and this is a linear partition of V into \mathcal{A}-invariant and \mathcal{A}-irreducible subspaces. However, the algebra \mathcal{A}(W \oplus W^\perp) is not \mathcal{A} — it is the larger algebra of operators whose matrix relative to X is block diagonal, but not necessarily with both blocks being the same. In other words \mathcal{A} consists of all matrices of the form

\begin{bmatrix} A & {} \\ {} & A \end{bmatrix},

whereas \mathcal{A}(W \oplus W^\perp) consists of all matrices of the form

\begin{bmatrix} A_1 & {} \\ {} & A_2 \end{bmatrix}.

To account for the above situation, we need a notion of equivalence for \mathcal{A}-invariant subspaces of V.

Definition 6.3. We say that two \mathcal{A}-invariant subspaces W_1,W_2 of V are \mathcal{A}-equivalent if we can choose bases in W_1 and W_2 such that, for every A \in \mathcal{A}, the matrix of the restriction of A to W_1 is the same as the matrix of the restriction of of A to W_2.

Now let \Lambda be a set parameterizing equivalence classes of \mathcal{A}-invariant and \mathcal{A}-irreducible subspaces of V. For each \lambda \in \Lambda, let V^\lambda be a representative of the the equivalence class corresponding to \lambda. The following result is a very simple version of the Artin-Wedderburn theorem. We will eventually prove this theorem for a special class of algebras coming from finite groups.

Theorem 6.8. We have \mathcal{A} \simeq \bigoplus_{\lambda \in \Lambda} \mathcal{L}(V^\lambda).

Math 202B Lecture 5

Recalling that in Math 202B the term “vector space” means finite-dimensional complex vector space. A Hilbert space is a vector space equipped with a scalar product: a function

\langle \cdot,\cdot \rangle \colon V \times V \longrightarrow \mathbb{C}

which satisfies:

  • \langle v,\beta_1w_1+\beta_2w_2 \rangle = \beta_1\langle v,w_1\rangle + \beta_2\langle v,w_2\rangle;
  • \langle v,w \rangle = \overline{\langle w,v\rangle};
  • \langle v,v \rangle \geq 0 with equality if and only if v=0_V.

An orthonormal basis in a Hilbert space V is a vector space basis X \subset V such that \langle x,y \rangle = \delta_{xy} for all x,y \in X. The expansion of any vector v \in V with respect to an orthonormal basis is

v = \sum\limits_{x \in X} \langle x,v\rangle x,

so that the scalar product of any two vectors v,w \in V is

\langle v,w \rangle = \sum\limits_{x \in X} \overline{\langle x,v\rangle}\langle x,w\rangle.

If W is a subspace of V, its orthogonal complement is

W^\perp = \{v \in V \colon \langle v,w \rangle = 0 \text{ for all }w \in W\},

and this is a subspace of V. Furthermore,

\min(W,W^\perp) = W \cap W^\perp = \{0_V\}

and

\max(W,W^\perp) = \mathrm{Span} (W \cup W^\perp) = V.

It is assumed that the above is familiar from Math 202A.

Definition 5.1. The linear algebra of a Hilbert space V is the vector space \mathcal{L}(V) of linear operators on A \colon V \to V together with multiplication defined by composition,

[AB](v) = A(B(v)),

and conjugation defined by sending A to its adjoint A^*, which is characterized by the condition

\langle v,Aw\rangle= \langle A^*v,w\rangle, \quad v,w \in V.

The following is a deep rust removal exercise.

Problem 5.1. Prove that \mathcal{L}(V) is indeed an algebra, i.e. satisfies the conditions of Definition 1.1. Show that \mathcal{L}(V) is commutative if and only if \dim V=1.

For the remainder of this lecture we fix a Hilbert space V and an orthonormal basis X \subset V. The matrix elements of A \in \mathcal{L}(V) relative to X are the scalar products

\langle x,Ay\rangle, \quad x,y \in X.

Here is another rust removal exercise.

Problem 5.2. Prove that A=B in \mathcal{L}(V) if and only if \langle x,Ay\rangle=\langle x,By \rangle for all x,y \in X. Given A,B \in \mathcal{L}(V), compute the matrix elements of the product AB in terms of the matrix elements of its factors.

We now define a set of operators in \mathcal{L}(V) associated to the orthonormal basis X.

Definition 5.2. The elementary operators E_{xy} \in \mathcal{L}(V) are defined by

E_{xy}z = x\langle y,z\rangle, \quad x,y,z \in X.

There are |X|^2 = (\dim V)^2 elementary operators in \mathcal{L}(V). It is straightforward to calculate the matrix elements of an elementary operator: we have

\langle w,E_{xy}z\rangle = \langle w,x \langle y,z\rangle\rangle=\langle w,x\rangle \langle y,z\rangle=\delta_{wx}\delta_{yz}, \quad w,x,y,z \in X.

Proposition 5.1. The elementary operators satisfy E_{xy}^*=E_{yx} and E_{wx}E_{yz} = \langle x,y\rangle E_{wz}.

Problem 5.3. Prove Proposition 4.1.

According to Proposition 4.1, the diagonal elementary operators E_{xx}, x \in X, are orthogonal projections in \mathcal{L}(V) – they satisfy E_{xx}^* and E_{xx}E_{yy}=\delta_{xy}E_{xx}. Thus, \{E_{xx} \colon x \in X\} is a linearly independent set in \mathcal{L}(V) spanning a subalgebra \mathcal{D}(X) of \mathcal{L}(V) isomorphic to \mathcal{F}(X) via E_{xx} \mapsto E_x. We call \mathcal{D}(X) the diagonal subalgebra of \mathcal{L}(V) relative to the orthonormal basis X \subset V. If A \in \mathcal{D}(X), we say that A acts diagonally on the orthonormal basis X, because the the fact that

A=\sum\limits_{x \in X} \alpha_x E_{xx}

means that only the diagonal matrix elements of A can be nonzero. Equivalently, \mathcal{D}(X) is the subalgebra of \mathcal{L}(V) consisting of all operators whose matrix relative to X is diagonal, and the diagonal matrix elements of every such A define a function on X.

Proposition 5.2. The set \{E_{xy} \colon x,y \in X\} of elementary operators spans \mathcal{L}(V).

Proof: Let A \in \mathcal{L}(V) be any operator, and let a_{xy} = \langle x,Ay\rangle be its matrix elements relative to the orthonormal basis X. Define B \in \mathcal{L}(V) by

B=\sum\limits_{x,y \in X} a_{xy}E_{xy}.

We claim that A=B. Indeed, the matrix elements of B are

\langle w,Bz\rangle = \sum\limits_{x,y \in X} a_{xy}\langle w,E_{xy}z\rangle = a_{wz}, \quad w,z \in X.

Thus, A=B by Problem 4.1.

-QED

We will now prove that \{E_{xy} \colon x,y \in X\} is a linearly independent set in \mathcal{L}(V), hence a linear basis. We will do this by introducing a scalar product on \mathcal{L}(V) with respect to which \{E_{xy} \colon x,y \in X\} is an orthonormal set.

Definition 5.3. The trace on \mathcal{L}(V) relative to X is the linear functional defined by

\mathrm{Tr}_X(A) = \sum\limits_{x \in X} \langle x,Ax\rangle, \quad A \in \mathcal{L}(V).

Proposition 5.3. We have

  • \mathrm{Tr}_X(I) = \dim V;
  • \mathrm{Tr}_X(AB)=\mathrm{Tr}_X(BA);
  • \mathrm{Tr}_X(A^*A) \geq 0 with equality if and only if A=0.

Proof: First, we have

\mathrm{Tr}_X(I) = \sum\limits_{x \in X} \langle x,Ix\rangle = \sum\limits_{x\in X}1 = |X|=\dim V.

Second, we have

\mathrm{Tr}_X(AB)=\sum\limits_{x\in X} \langle x,ABx\rangle=\sum\limits_{x \in X} \langle x,A\sum\limits_{y \in X} \langle y,Bx\rangle y\rangle=\sum\limits_{x \in X}\sum\limits_{y\in X} \langle x,Ay\rangle \langle y,Bx \rangle,

and changing order of summation this is

\sum\limits_{y\in X}\sum\limits_{x \in X}\langle y,Bx \rangle\langle x,Ay\rangle=\sum\limits_{y \in X} \langle y,B\sum\limits_{x \in X} \langle x,Ay\rangle x\rangle=\sum\limits_{y \in X} \langle y,BAy\rangle=\mathrm{Tr}_X(BA).

Third, we have

\mathrm{Tr}_X(A^*A) = \sum\limits_{x \in X} \langle x,A^*Ax\rangle = \sum\limits_{x \in X} \langle Ax,Ax\rangle = \sum\limits_{x\in X} \|Ax\|^2,

which vanishes if and only if every term of the sum vanishes, and this occurs if and only if A maps every vector in the basis X to the zero vector.

-QED

Proposition 5.4. Let X and Y be two orthonormal bases of V. We have \mathrm{Tr}_X=\mathrm{Tr}_Y.

Proof: For any enumeration x_1,\dots,x_n of X, and any enumeration y_1,\dots,y_n of Y, the linear operator U \colon V \to V defined by Ux_i=y_i is unitary. We have

\mathrm{Tr}_Y(A) = \sum\limits_{i=1}^n \langle y_i,Ay_i\rangle=\sum\limits_{I=1}^n \langle Ux_i,AUx_i\rangle = \mathrm{Tr}_X(U^*AU).

By Proposition 14.2, we have \mathrm{Tr}_X(U^*AU)=\mathrm{Tr}_X(AUU^*)=\mathrm{Tr}_X(A).

-QED

Proposition 14.3 shows that Definition 14.3 gives the same linear functional on \mathcal{L}(V) no matter what orthonormal basis X is used to define it, and we call this functional the trace on V.

Problem 5.4. Show that \mathrm{Tr} E_{xy}=\langle x,y \rangle.

Recall the following basic notion from Math 202A.

Definition 5.4. The spectrum of A \in \mathcal{L}(V) is the set \mathrm{Spec}(A) of numbers \alpha \in \mathbb{C} such that \alpha I-A is not invertible. Elements of \mathrm{Spec}(A) are called eigenvalues of A.

Because \alpha I - A being non-invertible is equivalent to \det(\alpha I - A)=0, and because \det (\alpha I-A) is a polynomial in \alpha, the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra says that \mathrm{Spec}(A) is nonempty for every A \in \mathcal{L}(V).

More recall from Math 202A: a number \alpha\in is an eigenvalue of an operator A \in \mathcal{L}(V) if and only if the kernel of \alpha I-A is not the zero subspace of \mathcal{L}(V). The nonzero subspace \mathrm{Ker}(\alpha I-A) is called the \alphaeigenspace of A, and any nonzero vector v \in \mathrm{Ker}(\alpha I-A) is said to be an eigenvector of A corresponding to the eigenvalue \alpha.

Problem 5.5. Prove that for any A \in \mathcal{L}(V) we have

\mathrm{Tr}\, A = \sum\limits_{a \in \mathrm{Spec}(A)} a.

Now we use the trace to define a scalar product on \mathcal{L}(V).

Definition 5.5. The Frobenius scalar product on \mathcal{L}(V) is defined by \langle A,B \rangle = \mathrm{Tr} A^*B.

The definition of the Frobenius scalar product should be familiar from Math 202A. The associated norm is called the Frobenius norm, \|A\|=\sqrt{\mathrm{Tr A^*A}}.

Problem 5.6. Show that the Frobenius scalar product is indeed a scalar product, and moreover that it interacts with multiplication and conjugation in \mathcal{L}(V) according to \langle AB,C\rangle =\langle B,A^*C\rangle=\langle A,CB^*\rangle for all A,B,C \in \mathcal{L}(V).

Theorem 5.5. The elementary operators \{E_{xy}\colon (x,y) \in X \times X\} form an orthonormal basis of \mathcal{L}(V) relative to the Frobenius scalar product.

Proof: We have already shown that \{E_{xy}\colon (x,y) \in X \times X\} spans \mathcal{L}(V), so it remains to show this is an orthonormal set with respect to the Frobenius scalar product. For any w,x,y,z \in X we have

\langle E_{wx},E_{yz}\rangle = \mathrm{Tr}(E_{wx}^*E_{yz})=\mathrm{Tr}(E_{xw}E_{yz}) = \langle w,y\rangle\mathrm{Tr}(E_{xz})=\langle w,y\rangle \langle x,z\rangle.

-QED

Problem 5.7. Prove that the diagonal subalgebra \mathcal{D}(X) is a maximal abelian subalgebra of \mathcal{L}(V).

Two Hilbert spaces V and W are said to be isomorphic if there is a linear bijection between them.

The trace on \mathcal{L}(V) is unique in the following sense.

Theorem 5.6. If \tau \colon \mathcal{L}(V) \to \mathbb{C} is a linear functional which satisfies \tau(AB)=\tau(BA) for all A,B \in \mathcal{L}(V), then \tau is a scalar multiple of the trace.

Proof: Since \tau is linear, it is uniquely determined by its values on the elementary basis E_{xy} of \mathcal{L}(V).

For distinct x,y \in X, we have

\tau(E_{xy})=\tau(E_{xy}E_{yy}) = \tau(E_{yy}E_{xy})=\tau(0)=0,

so \tau is zero on the off-diagonal elementary operators. For the diagonal elementary operators,

\tau(E_{xx})=\tau(E_{xy}E_{yx})=\tau(E_{yx}E_{xy})=\tau(E_{yy}).

Thus, \tau is constant on the diagonal elementary operators, i.e. there is a scalar c such that \tau(E_{xx})=c for all x \in X. Thus for any

A = \sum\limits_{x,y \in X} \alpha_{xy} E_{xy},

we have

\tau(A) = \sum\limits_{x \in X} \tau(E_{xx}) = c\dim V = c\mathrm{Tr} A.

-QED

Problem 5.8. Let V be a Hilbert space of dimension at least two. Show that there does not exist an algebra homomorphism \mathcal{L}(V) \to \mathbb{C}.