16 Dynkin diagrams from Lie algebras, and vice versa

16.1 The simplicity of sl(2, C)

We have seen that the non-zero structure constants of T( 1 0 ) SL(2, C) are
01

C 212 = 2, C 313 = 2, C 123 = 1,

plus those related by anti-symmetry.

Proposition 16.1. Two Lie algebras A and B are isomorphic if, and only if, there exists
a basis of A and a basis of B in which the structure constants of A and B are the same.

Since we have already proved that Te G =Lie alg L(G) for any Lie group G, we can
deduce the existence of a basis {X1 , X2 , X2 } of sl(2, C) with respect to which the structure
constants are those listed above. In other words, we have

[X1 , X2 ] = 2X2 ,
[X1 , X3 ] = 2X3 ,
[X2 , X3 ] = X1 .

In this basis, the Killing form of sl(2, C) has components

ij = C min C njm ,

with all indices ranging from 1 to 3. Explicitly, we have

11 = C m1n C n1m
C 1 n 2 n 3 n

= 1n C 11 + C 1n C 12 + C 1n C 13


= C 212 C 212 + C 313 C 313

= 8.

Since is symmetric, we only need to determine ij for i j. By writing the components

in a 3 3 array, we find
8 0 0
[ij ] = 0 8 0 ,

0 0 8
which is just shorthand for

(X1 , X1 ) = 8, (X2 , X2 ) = 8, (X3 , X3 ) = 8,

and (Xi , Xj ) = 0 whenever i 6= j.

Proposition 16.2. The Lie algebra sl(2, C) is semi-simple.

Proof. Since the diagonal entries of are all non-zero, the Killing form is non-degenerate.
By Cartans criterion, this implies that sl(2, C) is semi-simple.

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Remark 16.3. There is one more thing that can be read off from the components of ,
namely, that it is an indefinite form, i.e. the sign of (X, X) can be positive or negative
depending on which X sl(2, C) we pick.
A result from Lie theory states that the Killing form on the Lie algebra of a compact
Lie group is always negative semi-definite, i.e. (X, X) is always negative or zero, for all X
in the Lie algebra. Hence, we can conclude that SL(2, C) is not a compact Lie group.
In fact, sl(2, C) is more than just semi-simple.

Proposition 16.4. The Lie algebra sl(2, C) is simple.

Recall that a Lie algebra is said to be simple if it contains no non-trivial ideals, and
that an ideal I of a Lie algebra L is a Lie subalgebra of L such that

x I : y L : [x, y] I.

Proof. Consider the ideal of sl(2, C)

I := {X1 + X2 + X3 | , , restricted so that I is an ideal}.

Since the bracket is bilinear, it suffices to check the result of bracketing an arbitrary element
of I with each of the basis vectors of sl(2, C). We find

[X1 + X2 + X3 , X1 ] = 2X1 + 2X3 ,

[X1 + X2 + X3 , X2 ] = 2X2 X1 ,
[X1 + X2 + X3 , X3 ] = 2X3 + X1 .

We need to choose , , so that the results always land back in I. Of course, we can
choose , , C and = = = 0, which correspond respectively to the trivial ideals
sl(2, C) and 0. If none of , , is zero, then you can check that the right hand sides above
are linearly independent, so that I contains three linearly independent vectors. Since the
only n-dimensional subspace of an n-dimensional vector space is the vector space itself, we
have I = L. Thus, we are left with the following cases:

i) if = 0, then I spanC ({X2 , X3 }) and hence we must have = = 0 as well;

ii) if = 0, then I spanC ({X1 , X3 }), hence we must have = 0, so that in fact
I spanC ({X3 }), and hence = 0 as well;

iii) if = 0, then I spanC ({X1 , X2 }), hence we must have = 0, so that in fact
I spanC ({X2 }), and hence = 0 as well.

In all cases, we have I = 0. Therefore, there are no non-trivial ideals of sl(2, C).

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16.2 The roots and Dynkin diagram of sl(2, C)
By observing the bracket relations of the basis elements of sl(2, C), we can see that

H := spanC ({X1 })

is a Cartan subalgebra of sl(2, C). Indeed, for any h H, there exists a C such that
h = X1 , and hence we have

ad(h)X2 = [X1 , X2 ] = 2X2 ,

ad(h)X3 = [X1 , X3 ] = 2X3 .

Recall that in the section on Lie algebras, we re-interpreted these eigenvalue equations in
terms of functionals 2 , 3 H

2 : H
C 3 : H
C
X1 7 2, X1 7 2

whereby

ad(h)X2 = 2 (h)X2 ,
ad(h)X3 = 3 (h)X3 .

Then, 2 and 3 are called the roots of sl(2, C), so that the root set is = {2 , 3 }. Of
course, we are mainly interested in a subset of fundamental roots, which satisfies
i) is a linearly independent subset of H ;

ii) for any , we have span,N ().

We can choose := {2 }, even though := {3 } would work just as well. Since || = 1,
the Weyl group is generated by the single Weyl transformation

s2 : HR HR
(2 , )
7 2 2 .
(2 , 2 )
Recall that we can recover the entire root set by acting on the fundamental roots with
Weyl transformations. Indeed, we have
(2 , 2 )
s2 (2 ) = 2 2 2 = 2 22 = 2 = 3 ,
(2 , 2 )
as expected. Since there is only one fundamental root, the Cartan matrix is actually just a
1 1 matrix. Its only entry is a diagonal entry, and since sl(2, C) is simple, we have

C = (2).

The Dynkin diagram of sl(2, C) is simply

Hence, with reference to the Cartan classification, we have A1 = sl(2, C).

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16.3 Reconstruction of A2 from its Dynkin diagram
We have seen an example of how to construct the Dynkin diagram of a Lie algebra, albeit
the simplest of this kind. Let us now consider the opposite direction. We will start from
the Dynkin diagram

We immediately see that we have two fundamental roots, i.e. = {1 , 2 }, since there are
two circles in the diagram. The bond number is n12 = 1, so the two fundamental roots
have the same length. Moreover, by definition

1 = n12 = C12 C21

and since the off-diagonal entries of the Cartan matrix are non-positive integers, the only
possibility is C12 = C21 = 1, so that we have
 
2 1
C= .
1 2

To determine the angle between 1 and 2 , recall that

1 = n12 = 4 cos2 ,

and hence | cos | = 21 . There are two solutions, namely = 60 and = 120 .

1 cos x
1
2
120 360
0 60 180 x
12

By definition, we have
(1 , 2 )
cos = ,
|1 | |2 |
and therefore
(1 , 2 ) |1 | |2 | cos |2 |
0 > C12 = 2
=2 =2 cos .
(1 , 1 ) (1 , 1 ) |1 |
It follows that cos < 0, and hence = 120 . We can thus plot the two fundamental roots
in a plane as follows.

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 2

We can determine all the other roots in by repeated action of the Weyl group. For
instance, we easily find that s1 (1 ) = 1 and s2 (2 ) = 2 . We also have
(1 , 2 )
s1 (2 ) = 2 2 1 = 2 2( 12 )1 = 1 + 2 .
(1 , 1 )
Finally, we have s1 +2 (1 + 2 ) = (1 + 2 ). Any further action by Weyl transformations
simply permutes these roots. Hence, we have

= {1 , 1 , 2 , 2 , 1 + 2 , (1 + 2 )}

and these are all the roots.

2 1 + 2

1 1

(1 + 2 ) 2

Since H = spanC (), we have dim H = 2, thus the dimension of the Cartan subalgebra
is also 2. Since || = 6, we know that any Cartan-Weyl basis of the Lie algebra A2 must
have 2 + 6 = 8 elements. Hence, the dimension of A2 is 8.
To complete our reconstruction of A2 , we would now like to understand how its bracket
behaves. This amounts to finding its structure constants. Note that since dim A2 = 8, the
structure constants C kij consist of 83 = 512 complex numbers (not all unrelated, of course).
Denote by {h1 , h2 , e3 , . . . , e8 } a Cartan-Weyl basis of A2 , so that H = spanC ({h1 , h2 })
and the e are eigenvectors of every h H. Since A2 is simple, H is abelian and hence

[h1 , h2 ] = 0 C k12 = C k21 = 0, 1 k 8.

To each e , for 3 8, there is an associated such that

h H : ad(h)e = (h)e .

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In particular, for the basis elements h1 , h2 ,

[h1 , e ] = ad(h1 )e = (h1 )e ,

[h2 , e ] = ad(h2 )e = (h2 )e ,

so that we have

C 11 = C 21 = 0, C 1 = (h1 ), 3 8,
C 12 = C 22 = 0, C 2 = (h2 ), 3 8.

Finally, we need to determine [e , e ]. By using the Jacobi identity, we have

[hi , [e , e ]] = [e , [e , hi ]] [e , [hi , e ]]
= [e , (hi )e ] [e , (hi )e ]
= (hi )[e , e ] + (hi )[e , e ]
= ( (hi ) + (hi ))[e , e ],

that is,
ad(hi )[e , e ] = ( (hi ) + (hi ))[e , e ].
If + , we have [e , e ] = e for some 3 8 and C. Let us label the
roots in our previous plot as

3 4 5 6 7 8
1 2 1 + 2 1 2 (1 + 2 )

Then, for example

ad(h)[e3 , e4 ] = (1 + 2 )(h)[e3 , e4 ],
and hence [e3 , e4 ] is an eigenvector of ad(h) with eigenvalues (1 + 2 )(h). But so is e5 !
Hence, we must have [e3 , e4 ] = e5 for some C. Similarly, [e5 , e7 ] = e3 , and so on.
If + / , then in order for the equation above to hold, we must have either
[e , e ] = 0 (so both sides are zero), or (h) + (h) = 0 for all h, i.e. + = 0 as
a functional. In the latter case, we must have [e , e ] H. This follows from a stronger
version of the maximality property of the Cartan subalgebra H of a simple Lie algebra L,
namely that


h H : [h, x] = 0 x H.
Summarising, we have
e

if +
[e , e ] = H if + = 0


0 otherwise
and these relations con be used to determine the remaining structure constants of A2 .