Last update: 2 November 2012
Let be a finite dimensional complex simple Lie algebra and let be the Drinfel'd-Jimbo quantum group corresponding to that was defined in V (1.3). We shall often use the presentation of given in V (1.6). In this chapter we shall describe some of the structure which quantum groups have. In many cases this structure is similar to the structure of the enveloping algebra
The proofs of the triangular decomposition and the grading on the quantum group given in §1 can be found in [Jan1995] 4.7 and 4.21. The proof of the statements in (2.1) and (2.3), concerning the pairing can be found in [Jan1995] 6.12, 6.18, 8.28, and 6.22. The statement in (2.2) follows from Chapt I, Prop. (5.5). The theorem giving the existence and uniqueness of the is stated in [Dri1990] p.329 and the uniqueness is proved there. The existence follows from (7.4); see also [Lus1993] Theorem 4.1.2. The properties of the stated in (3.3) are proved in [Dri1990] Prop. 3.1 and Prop. 4.2. Proofs of the statements in the secion on the Casimir element can be found in [Dri1990] Prop 2.1, Prop 3.2 and Prop. 5.1.
Theorem (5.2a) is proved in [Jan1995] 8.15-8.17 and [Lus1993] 39.2.2. Theorem (5.2b) is a non-trivial, but very natural, extension of well known results which appear, for example, in [Jan1995] Chapt. 8. The proof is a combination of the methods used in [CPr1994] 8.2B and [Jan1995] 8.4 and a calculation similar to that in the proof of [Jan1995] Lemma 8.2. The properties of the element given in (5.3) are proved in the following places: The formula for is proved in [CPr1994] 8.2.4; The formula for is proved by a method similar to [Jan1995] 8.4; The formula for is proved in [CPr1994] 8.3.11 and the remainder of the formulas are proved in [CPr1994] 8.2.3.
The construction of the Poincaré-Birkhoff-Witt basis of given in section 6 appears in detail in [Jan1995] 8.18-8.30. The statement that is almost a quantum double, Theorem (7.3), appears in [Dri1987] §13, and an outline of the proof can be found in [CPr1994] 8.3. The proof of Theorem (8.4) can be gleaned from a combination of [Jan1995] 6.11 and 6.18. Both of the books [Lus1993] and [Jos1995] also contain this fact.
The triangular decomposition of the quantum group is analogous to the triangular decomposition of the Lie algebra and the triangular decomposition of the enveloping algebra given in II (2.3) and II (4.2).
Let be a finite dimensional complex simple Lie algebra and let be the corresponding Drinfel'd-Jimbo quantum group as presented in V (1.6). Define
The map
is an isomorphism of vector spaces.
The gradings on the positive part and on the negative part of the quantum group are exactly analogous to the gradings on the positive part and the negative part of the enveloping algebra which are given in II (4.3).
Let be a finite dimensional complex simple Lie algebra and let be the corresponding Drinfel'd-Jimbo quantum group as presented in V (1.6). Let be the simple roots for and let
For each element define
Then
as vector spaces.
In some sense the nonnegative part of the quantum group is the dual of the nonpositive part of the quantum group. This reflected in the fact that there is a nondegenerate bilinear pairing on all of The extended pairing is an analogue of the Killing form on in two ways:
Let be a finite dimensional complex simple Lie algebra and let be the corresponding Drinfel'd-Jimbo quantum group as presented in V (1.6). Define
If is the Cartan involution of as given in V (1.6) and is the antipode of then
for all and
The triangular decomposition (1.1) of says that and that
where and We can use this to extend the pairing defined in (2.1) to a pairing
for all and where is the antipode of Then
This formula says that the extended pairing is an ad-invariant pairing as defined in I (5.5). The pairing is not symmetric, see I (5.5).
Let be finite dimensional complex simple Lie algebra and let be the rational form of the quantum group over a field where char and is not a root of unity. Let be the root lattice for
Let be a finite dimensional module such that all weights of satisfy Then, for each pair and there is a unique element such that
where is the bilinear form on given by (2.1) after making the substitutions in V (2.2).
The function
is the coefficient of acting on The above theorem gives a duality between matrix coefficient functions and IT also says that every element of is determined by how it acts on finite dimensional
The following theorem states that there is an element such that the pair is a quasitriangular Hopf algebra. In particular, this implies that the category of finite dimensional modules for the quantum group is a braided SRMCwMFF.
Let be a finite dimensional complex simple Lie algebra and be the corresponding quantum group as presented in V (1.6). Recall the Killing form on from II (1.6).
Let be an orthonormal basis of with respect to the Killing form and define
If (see (1.2)) and where are the simple roots, define to be the smallest number of positive roots whose sum is equal to
The element is not quite an element of so we have to make the tensor product just a tiny bit bigger. To do this we let denote the completion of the tensor product see III §1.
There exists a unique invertible element such that
Recall V (1.6) that is a Hopf algebra with comultiplication counit and antipode and that comes with a Cartan involution The following formulas describe the relationship between the and the Hopf algebra structure on If then let
Let be the automorphism of given by and With these notations we have
Let be a finite dimensional complex simple Lie algebra and let be the corresponding Drinfel'd-Jimbo quantum group as presented in V (1.6). The antipode is an antiautomorphism of see I (2.1). This means that the map is an automorphism of The following theorem says that this automorphism is inner!
Let be the universal of as defined in (3.2). Suppose that and define Then is invertible and
The relationship of the element to the Hopf algebra structure of is given by the formulas
where is the universal of given in (3.2), and The inverse of the element is given by
Let be the element of such that for all simple roots of An easy check on the generators of shows that
It follows that
Any central element of must act on each finite dimensional simple by a constant. For each dominant integral weight let be the finite dimensional simple indexed by (see VI (1.3)). As in II (4.5), let be the element of given by
where the sum is over all positive roots for Then the element
where and the inner product in the exponent of is the inner product on given in II (2.7). Note that analogy with II (4.5). It is also interesting to note that
Let be the Weyl group corresponding to and let be the longest element of (see II (2.8)). Let be the simple reflections in For each there is a unique such that The map given by
extends to an automorphism of Let be the anti-automorphism of defined by and This is an analogue of the Cartan involution. Let be the antipode of as given in V (1.6). There are both anti-automorphisms of The composition.
is an automorphism of The following result says that this automorphism is inner.
Let be a finite dimensional complex simple Lie algebra and let be the corresponding quantum group as presented in V (1.6). Let and for each let
where the notation for is as in V (1.5). For each define
where the sum is over all nonnegative integers and
Let be the analogue of the Casimir element for as given in §4 and let be the automorphism of given in (3.3). Let be the automorphism of given in and Then
The relationship between the element and the Hopf algebra structure of is given by the formulas
where is the universal of given in (3.2), and
Let be a finite dimensional complex simple Lie algebra and let be the corresponding quantum group as presented in V (1.6). Let be the elements of given in (5.2). Define an automorphism by
Let be the Weyl group corresponding to Fix a reduced decomposition of the longest element see II (2.8). Define
The elements are the positive roots Define elements of by
These elements depend on the choice of the reduced decomposition. They are analogues of the elements and in which are given in II (4.4).
Let be a finite dimensional complex simple Lie algebra and let be the corresponding quantum group as presented in V (1.6). Let and be the subalgebras of defined in (1.1). The following bases of and are analogues of the Poincaré-Birkhoff-Witt bases of and which are given in II (4.4).
Let be the elements of defined in (6.1). Then
Recall the pairing between and given in (2.1).
Let be a reduced decomposition of the longest element of the Weyl group and let and be the elements defined in (6.1). Let Then
where is the Kronecker delta.
Furthermore, we have that, for each
Let be a finite dimensional complex simple Lie algebra and let be the corresponding quantum group as presented in V (1.6). Define
except let us distinguish the elements which are in from the elements which are in by writing and respectively, instead of just in both cases.
The nondegeneracy of the pairing between and (see (2.1)) shows that is essentially the dual of Furthermore, it follows from the conditions
that the multiplication in is the adjoint of the comultiplication in and the opposite of the comultiplication in is the adjoint of the multiplication in Thus (here we are fudging a bit since is infinite dimensional),
where is the Hopf algebra defined in I (5.2).
Recall, from I (5.3), that the quantum double of a finite dimensional Hopf algebra is the new Hopf algebra
with multiplication determined by the formulas
where, if is the comultiplication in and
The comultiplication is determined by the formula
where and
With the definition of the quantum double in mind it is natural that we should define the quantum double of to be the algebras
with multiplication and comultiplcation given by the formulas in (7.2). The following theorem says that the quantum group is almost the quantum double of in other words, is almost completely determined by pasting two copies of together.
Let be the inverse of the Cartan matrix corresponding to and, for each define
Recall (7.2) that the double comes with a natural universal given by
where the sum is over a basis of and is the dual basis in with respect to the form given in (2.1). We have used the notation here to distinguish it from the element in Theorem (3.2). The element is not exactly in the tensor product but if we make the tensor product just a tiny bit bigger by taking the completion of then we do have
The image of under the homomorphism
coincides with the element given in Theorem (3.2). This means that we actually get the element in Theorem (3.2) for free by realising the quantum group as a quantum double (almost).
In this section we will see that the most complicated of the definiing relations in the quantum group can be obtained in quite a natural way. More specifically, the ideal generated by them is the radical of a certain bilinear form.
Let be a finite dimensional complex simple Lie algebra and let be the corresponding Cartan matrix.
Let be the associative algebra over generated (as a complete in the topology) by
with relations
and define an algebra homomorphism by
where denotes the completion of the tensor product
Let be the associative algebra over generated (as a complete in the topology) by
with relations
and define an algebra homomorphism by
where denotes the completion of the tensor product
The algebras are much larger than the algebras used in (2.1) since they have fewer relations between generators.
In exactly the same way that we had a pairing between and in (2.1), there is a unique pairing
Let and be the left and right radicals, respectively, of the form defined in (8.3), i.e.
The sets and are the ideals of and generated by the elements
and
respectively.
It follows from this theorem that the quantum group is determined by the algebras and the form A construction of the quantum group along these lines would be very similar to the standard construction of Kac-Moody Lie algebras (see [Kac1983] §1.3).
This is an excerpt from a paper entitled Quantum groups: A survey of definitions, motivations and results by Arun Ram. Research and writing supported in part by an Australian Research Council fellowship and a National Science Foundation grant DMS-9622985.