For some reason several classes at MIT this year involve Fourier analysis. I was always confused about this as a high schooler, because no one ever gave me the “orthonormal basis” explanation, so here goes. As a bonus, I also prove a form of Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem using binary Fourier analysis, and then talk about the fancier generalizations using Pontryagin duality and the Peter-Weyl theorem.

In what follows, we let $\mathbb T = \mathbb R/\mathbb Z$ denote the “circle group”, thought of as the additive group of “real numbers modulo $1$”. There is a canonical map $e : \mathbb T \rightarrow \mathbb C$ sending $\mathbb T$ to the complex unit circle, given by $e(\theta) = \exp(2\pi i \theta)$

These notes are from the February 23, 2016 lecture of 18.757, Representations of Lie Algebras, taught by Laura Rider.

Fix a field $k$ and let $G$ be a finite group. In this post we will show that one can reconstruct the group $G$ from the monoidal category of $k[G]$-modules (i.e. its $G$-representations).

1. Hopf algebras

We won’t do anything with Hopf algebras per se, but it will be convenient to have the language.

Recall that an associative $k$-algebra is a $k$-vector space $A$ equipped with a map $m : A \otimes A \rightarrow A$ and $i : k \hookrightarrow A$ (unit), satisfying some certain axioms.

Then a $k$-coalgebra is …

Good luck to everyone taking the January TST for the IMO 2015 tomorrow!

Now that we have products of irreducibles under our belt, I’ll talk about the finite regular representation and use it to derive the following two results about irreducibles.

1. The number of (isomorphsim classes) of irreducibles $\rho_\alpha$ is equal to the number of conjugacy classes of $G$.
2. We have $\left\lvert G \right\rvert = \sum_\alpha \left( \dim \rho_\alpha \right)^2$.

These will actually follow as corollaries from the complete decomposition of the finite regular representation.

In what follows $k$ is an algebraically closed field, $G$ is a finite group, and the characteristic of $k$ does not divide $\left\lvert G \right\rvert$. As a reminder, here are the …

Happy New Year to all! A quick reminder that $2015 = 5 \cdot 13 \cdot 31$.

This post will set the stage by examining products of two representations. In particular, I’ll characterize all the irreducibles of $G_1 \times G_2$ in terms of those for $G_1$ and $G_2$. This will set the stage for our discussion of the finite regular representation in Part 4.

In what follows $k$ is an algebraically closed field, $G$ is a finite group, and the characteristic of $k$ does not divide $\left\lvert G \right\rvert$.

1. Products of representations

First, I need to tell you how to take the product of two representations.

Definition. Let $G_1$ and $G_{\mathrm{2\; \dots }}$

Merry Christmas!

In the previous post I introduced the idea of an irreducible representation and showed that except in fields of low characteristic, these representations decompose completely. In this post I’ll present Schur’s Lemma at talk about what Schur and Maschke tell us about homomorphisms of representations.

1. Motivation

Fix a group $G$ now, and consider all isomorphism classes of finite-dimensional representations of $G$. We’ll denote this set by $\operatorname{Irrep}(G)$. Maschke’s Theorem tells us that any finite-dimensional representation $\rho$ can be decomposed as $$\bigoplus_{\rho_\alpha \in \operatorname{Irrep}(G)} \rho_{\alpha}^{\oplus n_\alpha}$$ where $n_\alpha$ is some nonnegative integer. This begs the question: what is $n_\alpha$

Good luck to everyone taking the December TST tomorrow!

The goal of this post is to give the reader a taste of representation theory, a la Math 55a. In theory, this post should be accessible to anyone with a knowledge of group actions and abstract vector spaces.

Fix a ground field $k$ (for all vector spaces). In this post I will introduce the concept of representations and irreducible representations. Using these basic definitions I will establish Maschke’s Theorem, which tells us that irreducibles and indecomposables are the same thing.

1. Definition and examples

Let $G$ be a group.

Definition. A representation of $G$ consists of a pair $\rho = (V, \cdot_\rho)$ where $V$ is a vector space over $k$ and $\cdot_\rho$ is a (left) group action of $G$