Circle group

In mathematics, the circle group, denoted by or , is the multiplicative group of all complex numbers with absolute value 1, that is, the unit circle in the complex plane or simply the unit complex numbers The circle group forms a subgroup of , the multiplicative group of all nonzero complex numbers. Since is abelian, it follows that is as well. A unit complex number in the circle group represents a rotation of the complex plane about the origin and can be parametrized by the angle measure : This is the exponential map for the circle group. The circle group plays a central role in Pontryagin duality and in the theory of Lie groups. The notation for the circle group stems from the fact that, with the standard topology (see below), the circle group is a 1-torus. More generally, (the direct product of with itself times) is geometrically an -torus. The circle group is isomorphic to the special orthogonal group . One way to think about the circle group is that it describes how to add angles, where only angles between 0° and 360° or or are permitted. For example, the diagram illustrates how to add 150° to 270°. The answer is 150° + 270° = 420°, but when thinking in terms of the circle group, we may "forget" the fact that we have wrapped once around the circle. Therefore, we adjust our answer by 360°, which gives 420° ≡ 60° (mod 360°). Another description is in terms of ordinary (real) addition, where only numbers between 0 and 1 are allowed (with 1 corresponding to a full rotation: 360° or ), i.e. the real numbers modulo the integers: . This can be achieved by throwing away the digits occurring before the decimal point. For example, when we work out 0.4166... + 0.75, the answer is 1.1666..., but we may throw away the leading 1, so the answer (in the circle group) is just with some preference to 0.166..., because . The circle group is more than just an abstract algebraic object. It has a natural topology when regarded as a subspace of the complex plane. Since multiplication and inversion are continuous functions on , the circle group has the structure of a topological group.