Group Theory

In mathematics and abstract algebra, group theory studies the

algebraic structures known as groups. More poetically,
Group theory is the branch of mathematics that answers the
question, What is symmetry?
A man who is tired of group theory is a man who is tired of life.
Sidney Coleman
Symmetry principles play an important role with respect to
the laws of nature. They summarize the regularities of the laws that are
independent of the specific dynamics. Thus invariance principles
provide a structure and coherence to the laws of nature just as the laws
of nature provide a structure and coherence to the set of events.

Definition:
A group G may be defined as a set of objects or operations,
rotations, transformations, called the elements of G, that may be
combined, or multiplied, to form a well-defined product in G,
denoted by a *, that satisfies the following four conditions.
1) If a and b are any two elements of G, then the product a*b is also
an element of G, where b acts before a; or (a, b)
a*b
associates (or maps) an element a*b of G with the pair (a, b) of
elements of G. this property is known as G is closed under
multiplication of its own elements.
2) This multiplication is associative: (a*b)*c=a*(b*c).
3) There is a unit element 1 in G such that 1*a=a*1=a for every
element a in G. The unit is unique: 1=1 *1=1 .
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4) There is an inverse, or reciprocal, of each element a of G;

labeled11 , such that a*11 =11 *a=1. The inverse is unique: if
11 and 11 are
both
inverse
of
a,
then
11 =11 *(a*11 )=( 11 *a)* 11 =11 .[1]

Development:
One of the most important mathematical achievements of 20th
century was the collaborative effort, taking up more than 10,000
journal pages and mostly published between 1960 and 1980, that
culminated in a complete classification of finite simple groups.
The study of groups arose early in the nineteenth century in
connection with the solution of equations. Originally a group was a set
of permutations with the property that the combination of any two
permutations again belongs to the set. Subsequently this definition was
generalized to the concept of an abstract group, which was defined to
be a set, not necessarily of permutations, together with a method of
combining its elements that is subject to a few simple laws.
There are many physical systems whose underlying dynamics has
some symmetry. A good example is provided by the water molecule.
There is symmetry between the two hydrogen ions, which may be
interchanged without affecting the energy of the system. Again there is
translation symmetry: the interaction between any two ions situated at
two different positions depends only on their relative separation and
not on their absolute positions. That is, the potential energy is actually
a function of relative separation and same is the case for the kinetic
energy. Further more the system has a rotational invariance whereby
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its energy is independent of its absolute orientation. Thus underlying

Hamiltonian, the classical expression for the energy, which becomes an
operator in Quantum mechanics, is invariant under a set of
transformations of the coordinates, which includes reflections,
translations and rotations.
These different types of transformation all have the common
property that they form a group. The successive application of two
such transformations gives another one, which we call the product.
There is an identity transformation, which is simply to do nothing,
and each transformation has an inverse, which undoes the
operation, i.e. the product of a transformation and its inverse is the
identity.
Any given particular planetary orbit is an ellipse. It is not even
circular, which worried the ancients greatly, but perhaps they should
have been more worried that even a circle does not respect the
spherical symmetry of the underlying Hamiltonian. The explanation
is that the symmetry has some how been broken by the initial
conditions of the motion, which picked out first of all a plane in
which the motion would take place, and then in that plane a
direction, say that of the semi-major axis. Paradoxically, the facts
that the motion remains in a plane and that the direction of the
major axis remains fixed are due to laws of angular momentum and
Rung-Lentz vector which are the consequence of the underlying
symmetries.[2]

Applications
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The most of important applications of group theory in physics are

found not in the classical mechanics but rather in quantum
mechanics. There the ground state of a system usually does exhibit
the full symmetry of the Hamiltonian, though a very important and
interesting exception to this occurs in the phenomenon of
spontaneous symmetry breaking, where, again because of some
uncontrollable perturbation of the initial conditions, one asymmetric
solution is picked out of an infinite set of possible ones. Thus the
fundamental interactions of the spins in a ferromagnetic are
rotationally symmetric, but when one is formed they align
themselves in some particular direction. But as an example of the
more usual scenario, consider the group state of the hydrogen atom;
the ground state wave function gives a spherically symmetric
probability distribution which indeed respects the spherical
symmetry of the 1/r potential.
As far as the excited states are concerned, the rotational
symmetry of the problem means that they can be classified by the
total angular momentum number l and the magnetic quantum
number m, which refers to the eigenvalue of its z component.
Moreover, the energy does not depend on m. this makes perfect
sense physically, since there is no preferred direction: the choice of z
axis was completely arbitrary. As far as mathematics is concerned, it
means that we have a degenerate space of eigenfunctions with m
ranging from +l to l. which all have the same energy and can be
transformed into each other by rotations. We can take arbitrary
linear combinations of the 2l+1 eigenfunctions which are still
eigenfunctions with the same energy and total angular momentum.
They therefore form what is technically known as a vector space. The
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group of rotations in ordinary 3-dimensional space induces

transformations within this vector space, giving what is known as a
representation, which can be realized by matrices, in this case of
dimension (2l+1)*(2l+1).[3]

In classical mechanics the symmetry of a physical system leads to

conservation laws. Conservation of angular momentum is a direct
consequence of rotational symmetry, which means invariance under
spatial rotations. In the first third of 20th century, Wigner and others
realized that invariance was a key concept in understanding the new
quantum phenomena and in developing appropriate theories. Thus, in
quantum mechanics the concept of angular momentum and spin
momentum has become even more central.[4]

1) Raising of Degeneracy:
Degeneracy: We are typically concerned with the eigenvalues and
eigenvectors of a quantum Hamiltonian 0 which is invariant under a
group symmetry transformation G.
In Dirac notation the energy eigenvalue equation is
0 | (0) >= (0) |

>

.. (a)

And the invariance of 0 is expressed by

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0 . () = 0
Where U(g) is the unitary operator induced in the space of quantum
mechanical states by the physical transformation g.
Because of the invariance of 0 we have,
0
=

> = 0 |

>

>
=

(()|

>

That is, U(g)| 0 > is again an eigenstate of 0 with the same

eigenvalue 0 transform among themselves under the action of the
group. They thus form a sub module in the complete space of
eigenvectors and provide the basis of a representation of G. it could be
that there is only one eigenstate with the given eigenvalue, in which case
we speak of a non-degenerate level. The representation is then just the
trivial representation. However, in many examples of physical interest
there is more than one such eigenstate, in which case we speak of the
level as being generate. In the latter case the action of the group on the
space of degenerate states of the level induces an r-dimensional
representation, where r is the number of degenerate eigenvectors. In
general there is no reason to expect smaller invariant subspaces, which
means that the representation will be irreducible. Thus a given energy
level 0 will correspond to an irreducible representation , say, of G,
and the degeneracy r will be just the dimensionality of . The level
(0)

can be labeled as , where comprises other labels not connected

with the group.[5]
An example which immediately springs to mind is the energy
spectrum of a particle moving in a central potential. The symmetry
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group is the 3-dimensional rotation group SO(3)., whose irreducible

representations, of dimension 2l+1, are labeled by the integer l
associated with the angular part of the wave equation. The principle
quantum number n, on the other hand, is associated with solutions of the
(0)

radial equation. For a general potential U(r) the levels are distinct.
However, in the most familiar problem of all, U=-k/r, there occurs the
(0)

(0)

accidental degeneracy
with l<n, giving a degeneracy
= 2 . This additional degeneracy, which means that each level
corresponds to a reducible representation of SO(3), arises from
invariance of the 1/r potential under the larger group SO(4).[8]
2) Classification of spectral terms:
If we are studying an atomic system, we must first find the symmetry
group of the Hamiltonian, i.e., the set of transformations which leave the
Hamiltonian invariant. The existence of a symmetry group for the
system raises the possibility of degeneracy. If is an eigenfunction
belonging to the energy , then is degenerate with (R is any
element of the symmetry group G). Unless = C for all R, the
level is degenerate. The eigenfunctions belonging to a given energy
from the basis for representation of the group G. In most cases this
representation will be irreducible. Only in rare cases, for very special
choices of parameters, will we have accidental degeneracy, so that sets
of functions belonging to different irreducible representations coincide
in energy. It is clear that the partners who form the basis for one of the
irreducible representations of G must be degenerate, since they are
transformed into one another by operations of the symmetry group. But

two distinct sets of partners, and , even if they form bases for the
same irreducible representation of G(=), transformation only among

themselves, and are not compelled by symmetry considerations to be

degenerate with one another.
So we may assume, in general, that the set of eigenfunctions
belonging to a given energy are a set of partners, and form the basis for
one of the irreducible representations of the symmetry group. This
already tells us a great deal about the degree of degeneracy to be
expected. For example, if we consider a system having the symmetry
group O, the energy level of the system can only be single, or doubly or
triply degenerate. The single levels will be of two types, depending on
whether they belong to the representations 1 or2 . The eigenfunctions
of these two types of simple levels differ in their behavior under the
operations 4 and 2 . The doubly degenerate levels will all be of the
same type, belonging to the two-dimensional representation E. finally,
there will be two different types of triply degenerate levels belonging to
the representations 1 and 2 . If we disregard possible accidental
degeneracy, these are only possible level types. Though the labels which
we use may appear strange, we are actually doing exactly what is done
in Quantum-mechanical treatments-we are assigning two quantum

numbers, and i, to each eigenfunction to describe its behavior

under the operations of the point-symmetry group. In the same way, as
we shall later see, when the symmetry group is the full rotation group,

we assign quantum numbers to

to characterize its behavior
under rotation and inversion (by assigning it to the mth row of the lth
irreducible representation).
Thus the following level scheme might be typical for a system with
symmetry O:

In this diagram two levels are drawn which belong to the 1 representation. The fact that they are pictured as having different

energies implies that the functions 1 1 and1 1 are linearly independent;

if they were linearly related, they would necessarily have the same
energy. Similarly, for the two levels labeled E, 1 2 are partners
which transform according to E and are thus necessarily degenerate;
1 2 are also partners, but the s and s are linearly
independent of one another.[3]

3) The solution of the Schrdinger equation:

One of the most valuable application of group theory is to the
solution of the Schrdinger equation. Only for a small number of very
simple systems, such as the hydrogen atom, is it possible to obtain an
exact analytic solution. For all other systems it is necessary to resort to
numerical calculations, but the work involved can be shortened
considerably by the application of group representation theory. This is
particularly true in electric energy band calculations in solid state
physics, where accurate calculations are only feasible when group
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theoretical arguments are used to exploit the symmetry of the system

to the full.[5]
4) The classification of a state of the systems of identical

particles:
One of the main problems of atomic and nuclear physics is the
determination of identical (equivalent) particles. Since we cannot solve
the problem for a system of interacting particles, we use the methods
of perturbation theory. Each particle of the system is assumed to move
in some averaged potential field. We determine the eigenstates for this
average field and take, as basis functions for the full problem, products
of the single-particle field plus the interactions among the particles. If
the particles are identical, the interaction operator will be symmetric in
all the particles. Consequently its matrix elements between basis
functions will depend sensitively on the symmetry of these functions
under interchange of particles.[6]

5) Nuclear structure:
Perturbation procedures similar to those for the many-electron
problem can be applied to nuclei. The nuclear problem is complicated
by the fact that the system is built up from two kinds of particles,
neutrons and protons. (In addition, we have no definite knowledge of
the nuclear interaction. The comparison of calculated and observed
nuclear structures provides us with information concerning the nuclear
Hamiltonian.) The neutron and proton have (approximately) the same
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mass and spin (s=1/2), and transform into each other in beta-decay.
The neutron is neutral, while the proton has charge +e, so only the
protons will be subjected to Coulomb forces. However, the coulomb
forces are small compared to the specifically nuclear forces. In addition,
the available experimental evidence shows that the specifically nuclear
forces between two particles in the nucleus do not depend on whether
the particles are neutrons or protons-the nuclear forces are chargeindependent. It is therefore useful to regard neutron and proton as
state of a single fundamental entity which we call a nucleon.[7]

6) Nuclear spectra in L-S coupling:

If the nuclear forces do not depend strongly on the spins, we can,
as in the atomic problem, write the wave function as the product of an
orbital function and a function of the spin and charge variables. The
interaction Hamiltonian is symmetric in the space coordinates of the
nucleons, so the orbital wave functions should be combined to give a
total orbital function of definite symmetry. The energy of the state will
depend critically on this symmetry. Since the nuclear forces are
primarily attractive, the energy will be lowered if the symmetry of the
orbital wave function is increased. Thus we may expect that the state
whose orbital function has the highest symmetry will have the lowest
energy. Since the total wave function of the system of identical
nucleons is required by the Pauli principle to be completely anti
symmetric, we must construct charge-spin functions of definite
symmetry and obtain the total wave function by taking the product of
the orbital function with a charge-spin function having the conjugate
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symmetry. Since the energy of the state is determined only by the

orbital function, while the multiplicity depends on the charge-spin
function, each energy level will be a supermultiplet.[9]

Conclusion:
The concept of symmetry plays very important role in daily life
problems. Many physical systems are much complicated and still it is
impossible to completely solve the problems. On the bases of the group
theory the problem is reduced into groups by considering the symmetry
and then it becomes easy to solve. Same principle is used to solve the
Schrdinger equation and the most important applications are found in
Quantum mechanics. In short the symmetry concept has made very
easy to solve physical problems and its importance can also be seen in
other fields.

References:
1) Arfken & Weber, Mathematical Methods For Physicists,
Publisher, Elsevier Academic Press 2005.
2) Gene Dresselhaus,Group Theory Applications to the Physics of
Condensed Matter, Publisher Springer 2007.
3) H. F. Jones, Groups, Representations and Physics, Publisher J
W Arrow smith, 1998.
4) G. T. Hooft, Lie Groups in Physics, Publisher Mc Graw Hill,
2007.
5) John S, A course on Group Theory, Publisher Syndics of the
Cambridge University 1978.
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6) J. F. Cornwell, Group Theory in Physics, Publisher Academic

Press London 1997.
7) M. Hamermesh, Group Theory and its Applications to Physical
Problems, Publisher Argonne National Laboratory 1959.
8) B. Baumslag Bruce C. Group Theory, Schaums Outline Series,
Publisher Mc Graw Hill 1968.
9) Wu-Ki Tung, Group Theory in Physics, Publisher World Sceince
Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd 1985.

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