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Concept
Klein geometry
Summary
In mathematics, a Klein geometry is a type of geometry motivated by Felix Klein in his influential Erlangen program. More specifically, it is a homogeneous space X together with a transitive action on X by a Lie group G, which acts as the symmetry group of the geometry.
For background and motivation see the article on the Erlangen program.
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) 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, simply the Klein geometry). The space X = G/H of a Klein geometry is a smooth manifold of dimension
dim X = dim G − dim H.
There is a natural smooth left action of G on X given by
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 fixing a basepoint 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 X is naturally diffeomorphic to G/H.
Two Klein geometries (G1, H1) and (G2, H2) are geometrically isomorphic if there is a Lie group isomorphism φ : G1 → G2 so that φ(H1) = H2. In particular, if φ is conjugation by an element g ∈ G, we see that (G, H) and (G, gHg−1) 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).
Given a Lie group G and closed subgroup H, there is natural right action of H on G given by right multiplication. This action is both free and proper. The orbits are simply the left cosets of H in G. One concludes that G has the structure of a smooth principal H-bundle over the left coset space G/H:
The action of G on X = G/H need not be effective.
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