Quaternionic representation
Quaternionic representation
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Quaternionic representation

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Quaternionic representation

In the mathematical field of representation theory, a quaternionic representation is a representation on a complex vector space V with an invariant quaternionic structure, i.e., an antilinear equivariant map

which satisfies

Together with the imaginary unit i and the antilinear map k := ij, j equips V with the structure of a quaternionic vector space (i.e., V becomes a module over the division algebra of quaternions). From this point of view, quaternionic representation of a group G is a group homomorphism φ: G → GL(VH), the group of invertible quaternion-linear transformations of V. In particular, a quaternionic matrix representation of g assigns a square matrix of quaternions ρ(g) to each element g of G such that ρ(e) is the identity matrix and

Quaternionic representations of associative and Lie algebras can be defined in a similar way.

If V is a unitary representation and the quaternionic structure j is a unitary operator, then V admits an invariant complex symplectic form ω, and hence is a symplectic representation. This always holds if V is a representation of a compact group (e.g. a finite group) and in this case quaternionic representations are also known as symplectic representations. Such representations, amongst irreducible representations, can be picked out by the Frobenius-Schur indicator.

Quaternionic representations are similar to real representations in that they are isomorphic to their complex conjugate representation. Here a real representation is taken to be a complex representation with an invariant real structure, i.e., an antilinear equivariant map

which satisfies

A representation which is isomorphic to its complex conjugate, but which is not a real representation, is sometimes called a pseudoreal representation.

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