Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?

Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.

Concept

Symmetry group

Summary

In group theory, the symmetry group of a geometric object is the group of all transformations under which the object is invariant, endowed with the group operation of composition. Such a transformation is an invertible mapping of the ambient space which takes the object to itself, and which preserves all the relevant structure of the object. A frequent notation for the symmetry group of an object X is G = Sym(X). For an object in a metric space, its symmetries form a subgroup of the isometry group of the ambient space. This article mainly considers symmetry groups in Euclidean geometry, but the concept may also be studied for more general types of geometric structure. We consider the "objects" possessing symmetry to be geometric figures, images, and patterns, such as a wallpaper pattern. For symmetry of physical objects, one may also take their physical composition as part of the pattern. (A pattern may be specified formally as a scalar field, a function of position with values in a set of colors or substances; as a vector field; or as a more general function on the object.) The group of isometries of space induces a group action on objects in it, and the symmetry group Sym(X) consists of those isometries which map X to itself (as well as mapping any further pattern to itself). We say X is invariant under such a mapping, and the mapping is a symmetry of X. The above is sometimes called the full symmetry group of X to emphasize that it includes orientation-reversing isometries (reflections, glide reflections and improper rotations), as long as those isometries map this particular X to itself. The subgroup of orientation-preserving symmetries (translations, rotations, and compositions of these) is called its proper symmetry group. An object is chiral when it has no orientation-reversing symmetries, so that its proper symmetry group is equal to its full symmetry group. Any symmetry group whose elements have a common fixed point, which is true if the group is finite or the figure is bounded, can be represented as a subgroup of the orthogonal group O(n) by choosing the origin to be a fixed point.

Official source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry_group

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related publications (7)

Related people (2)

Related concepts (110)

Related courses (60)

CH-632: Principles and Applications of X-ray Diffraction

Basic theoretical aspects of Crystallography and the interaction between X-ray radiation and matter. Experimental aspects of materials-oriented powder and single crystal diffraction. Familiarization w

PHYS-432: Quantum field theory II

The goal of the course is to introduce relativistic quantum field theory as the conceptual and mathematical framework describing fundamental interactions such as Quantum Electrodynamics.

PHYS-314: Quantum physics II

The aim of this course is to familiarize the student with the concepts, methods and consequences of quantum physics.

Related lectures (717)

Related MOOCs (3)

Physique générale

Introduction to optimization on smooth manifolds: first order methods

Learn to optimize on smooth, nonlinear spaces: Join us to build your foundations (starting at "what is a manifold?") and confidently implement your first algorithm (Riemannian gradient descent).

Cement Chemistry and Sustainable Cementitious Materials

Learn the basics of cement chemistry and laboratory best practices for assessment of its key properties.

Invariant Integrals on Topological Groups and Applications

Vasco Schiavo

We study a fixed point property for linear actions of discrete groups on weakly complete convex proper cones in locally convex topological vector spaces. We search to understand the class of discrete groups which enjoys this property and we try to generalize it for Hausdorff topological groups.

EPFL2021

Long-range magnetic ordering in Li2MnGeO4 and precursor short-range spin correlations

Irina Safiulina, Artem Korshunov

Long-range magnetic ordering and short-range spin correlations in layered noncentrosymmetric orthogermanate Li2MnGeO4 were studied by means of polarized and unpolarized neutron scattering. The combined Rietveld refinement of synchrotron and neutron powder diffraction data at room temperature within the Pmn2(1) space group allowed us to specify the details of the crystal structure. According to the additional Bragg peaks in low-temperature neutron diffraction patterns a long-range antiferromagnetic ordering with the propagation vector k = (1/2 1/2 1/2) has been found below T-N approximate to 8 K. Symmetry analysis revealed the model of the ground state spin structure within the C(a)c (no. 9.41) magnetic space group. It is represented by the noncollinear ordering of manganese atoms with a refined magnetic moment of 4.9 mu(B)/Mn2+ at 1.7 K, which corresponds to the saturated value for the high-spin configuration S = 5/2. Diffuse magnetic scattering was detected on the neutron diffraction patterns at temperatures just above T-N. Its temperature evolution was investigated in detail by polarized neutron scattering with the following XYZ-polarization analysis. Reverse Monte Carlo simulation of diffuse scattering data showed the development of short-range ordering in Li2MnGeO4, which is symmetry consistent on a small scale with the long-range magnetic state below T-N. The reconstructed radial spin-pair correlation function S(0)S(r) displayed the predominant role of antiferromagnetic correlations. It was found that spin correlations are significant only for the nearest magnetic neighbors and almost disappear at r approximate to 12 angstrom at 10 K. Temperature dependence of the diffuse scattering implies short-range ordering long before the magnetic phase transition. Besides, the spin arrangement was found to be similar in both cases above and below T-N. As a result, an exhaustive picture of the gradual formation of magnetic ordering in Li2MnGeO4 is presented.

2020

Let

G

be a simple linear algebraic group over an algebraically closed field

K

of characteristic

p \geq 0

. In this thesis, we investigate closed connected reductive subgroups

X < G

that contain a given distinguished unipotent element

u

G

. Our main result is the classification of all such

X

that are maximal among the closed connected subgroups of

G

. When

G

is simple of exceptional type, the result is easily read from the tables computed by Lawther (J. Algebra, 2009). Our focus is then on the case where

G

is simple of classical type, say

G = \operatorname{SL}(V)

G = \operatorname{Sp}(V)

, or

G = \operatorname{SO}(V)

. We begin by considering the maximal closed connected subgroups

X

G

which belong to one of the families of the so-called \emph{geometric subgroups}. Here the only difficult case is the one where

X

is the stabilizer of a tensor decomposition of

V

. For

p = 2

and

X = \operatorname{Sp}(V_1) \otimes \operatorname{Sp}(V_2)

, we solve the problem with explicit calculations; for the other tensor product subgroups we apply a result of Barry (Comm. Algebra, 2015). After the geometric subgroups, the maximal closed connected subgroups that remain are the

X < G

such that

X

is simple and

V

is an irreducible and tensor indecomposable

X

-module. The bulk of this thesis is concerned with this case. We determine all triples

(X, u, \varphi)

where

X

is a simple algebraic group,

u \in X

is a unipotent element, and

\varphi: X \rightarrow G

is a rational irreducible representation such that

\varphi(u)

is a distinguished unipotent element of

G

. When

p = 0

, this was done in previous work by Liebeck, Seitz and Testerman (Pac. J. Math, 2015). In the final chapter of the thesis, we consider the more general problem of finding all connected reductive subgroups

X

G

that contain a distinguished unipotent element

u

G

. This leads us to consider connected reductive overgroups

X

u

which are contained in some proper parabolic subgroup of

G

. Testerman and Zalesski (Proc. Am. Math. Soc, 2013) have shown that when

u

is a regular unipotent element of

G

, no such

X

exists. We give several examples which show that their result does not generalize to distinguished unipotent elements. As an extension of the Testerman-Zalesski result, we show that except for two known examples which occur in the case where

(G, p) = (C_2, 2)

, a connected reductive overgroup of a distinguished unipotent element of order

p

cannot be contained in a proper parabolic subgroup of

G

EPFL2018

Let

G

be a simple linear algebraic group over an algebraically closed field

K

of characteristic

p \geq 0

. In this thesis, we investigate closed connected reductive subgroups

X < G

that contain a given distinguished unipotent element

u

G

. Our main result is the classification of all such

X

that are maximal among the closed connected subgroups of

G

. When

G

is simple of exceptional type, the result is easily read from the tables computed by Lawther (J. Algebra, 2009). Our focus is then on the case where

G

is simple of classical type, say

G = \operatorname{SL}(V)

G = \operatorname{Sp}(V)

, or

G = \operatorname{SO}(V)

. We begin by considering the maximal closed connected subgroups

X

G

which belong to one of the families of the so-called \emph{geometric subgroups}. Here the only difficult case is the one where

X

is the stabilizer of a tensor decomposition of

V

. For

p = 2

and

X = \operatorname{Sp}(V_1) \otimes \operatorname{Sp}(V_2)

X < G

such that

X

is simple and

V

is an irreducible and tensor indecomposable

X

-module. The bulk of this thesis is concerned with this case. We determine all triples

(X, u, \varphi)

where

X

is a simple algebraic group,

u \in X

is a unipotent element, and

\varphi: X \rightarrow G

is a rational irreducible representation such that

\varphi(u)

is a distinguished unipotent element of

G

. When

p = 0

X

G

that contain a distinguished unipotent element

u

G

. This leads us to consider connected reductive overgroups

X

u

which are contained in some proper parabolic subgroup of

G

. Testerman and Zalesski (Proc. Am. Math. Soc, 2013) have shown that when

u

is a regular unipotent element of

G

, no such

X

(G, p) = (C_2, 2)

, a connected reductive overgroup of a distinguished unipotent element of order

p

cannot be contained in a proper parabolic subgroup of

G

EPFL2018

Long-range magnetic ordering in Li2MnGeO4 and precursor short-range spin correlations

Irina Safiulina, Artem Korshunov

2020