Klein geometry

In mathematics, a Klein geometry is a type of geometry 2 Bundle description

motivated by Felix Klein in his inuential Erlangen program. More specically, it is a homogeneous space X Given a Lie group G and closed subgroup H, there is nattogether with a transitive action on X by a Lie group G, ural right action of H on G given by right multiplication.
which acts as the symmetry group of the geometry.
This action is both free and proper. The orbits are simFor background and motivation see the article on the ply the left cosets of H in G. One concludes that G has
the structure of a smooth principal H-bundle over the left
Erlangen program.
coset space G/H:

Formal denition

H G G/H.

A Klein geometry is a pair (G, H) where G is a Lie group

and H is a closed Lie subgroup of G such that the (left)
3 Types of Klein geometries
coset space G/H is connected. The group G is called the
principal group of the geometry and G/H is called the
space of the geometry (or, by an abuse of terminology, 3.1 Eective geometries
simply the Klein geometry). The space X = G/H of a Klein
geometry is a smooth manifold of dimension
The action of G on X = G/H need not be eective. The
kernel of a Klein geometry is dened to be the kernel of
the action of G on X. It is given by
dim X = dim G dim H.
K = {k G : g 1 kg H g G}.

There is a natural smooth left action of G on X given by

The kernel K may also be described as the core of H in

G (i.e. the largest subgroup of H that is normal in G). It
is the group generated by all the normal subgroups of G
that lie in H.

g.(aH) = (ga)H.

A Klein geometry is said to be eective if K = 1 and

locally eective if K is discrete. If (G, H) is a Klein
geometry with kernel K, then (G/K, H/K) is an eective
Klein geometry canonically associated to (G, H).

Clearly, this action is transitive (take a = 1), so that one

may then regard X as a homogeneous space for the action
of G. The stabilizer of the identity coset H X is precisely
the group H.

Given any connected smooth manifold X and a smooth

transitive action by a Lie group G on X, we can construct
an associated Klein geometry (G, H) by xing a basepoint 3.2 Geometrically oriented geometries
x0 in X and letting H be the stabilizer subgroup of x0 in
G. The group H is necessarily a closed subgroup of G and A Klein geometry (G, H) is geometrically oriented if G
is connected. (This does not imply that G/H is an oriented
X is naturally dieomorphic to G/H.
Two Klein geometries (G1 , H 1 ) and (G2 , H 2 ) are geo- manifold). If H is connected it follows that G is also conmetrically isomorphic if there is a Lie group isomor- nected (this is because G/H is assumed to be connected,
phism : G G so that (H ) = H . In particular, and G G/H is a bration).
1

Given any Klein geometry (G, H), there is a geometrically

oriented geometry canonically associated to (G, H) with
the same base space G/H. This is the geometry (G0 , G0
H) where G0 is the identity component of G. Note that
G = G0 H.

if is conjugation by an element g G, we see that (G,

H) and (G, gHg1 ) are isomorphic. The Klein geometry
associated to a homogeneous space X is then unique up
to isomorphism (i.e. it is independent of the chosen basepoint x0 ).
1

3.3

Reductive geometries

A Klein geometry (G, H) is said to be reductive and G/H

a reductive homogeneous space if the Lie algebra h of
H has an H-invariant complement in g .

Examples

In the following table, there is a description of the classical geometries, modeled as Klein geometries.

References
R. W. Sharpe (1997). Dierential Geometry: Cartans Generalization of Kleins Erlangen Program.
Springer-Verlag. ISBN 0-387-94732-9.

REFERENCES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

6.1

Text

Klein geometry Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klein_geometry?oldid=674247367 Contributors: Giftlite, Fropu, Yaco, That Guy,
From That Show!, RDBury, Bluebot, Skatche, Foxjwill, UU, Tesseran, Franp9am, Nilradical, Addbot, Yobot, Citation bot, Point-set
topologist, Rausch, Quondum, Psh1136 and Anonymous: 1

6.2

Images

6.3

Content license

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0