Open Journal of Applied & Theoretical Mathematics (OJATM)

Vol. 3, No. 1, March 2017, pp. 04~07

ISSN: 2455-7102

ON THE POLAR FORM OF QUATERNIONS

Sharbel D. Dos Santos-Alvarado

&
Osiris Salas-Torres
Mathematics Department,
Escuela Superior de Ingeniería Mecánica y Eléctrica, Unidad Zacatenco,
Instituto Politécnico Nacional,
Unidad Profesional Adolfo López Mateos,
Av. Wilfrido Massieu s/n, col. Lindavista, CP 07738
Ciudad de México, México

Article Info ABSTRACT

Article history:
Received Dec. 24th, 2016 In this work the authors show that quaternions can be
Revised Feb. 16th, 2017 written in generalized coordinates, not only on
Accepted March.18th, 2017 rectangular ones. It is shown particularly the form the
quaternions assume in cylindrical and spherical
coordinates.
Keyword:
Quaternions, Cartesian,
cylindrical and spherical
coordinates, polar form
Copyright © 2017
Open Journal of Applied & Theoretical Mathematics (OJATM)

All rights reserved.

Corresponding Author: Osiris Salas-Torres

Email: sdossantos@ipn.mx

1. INTRODUCTION

The standard quaternion representation

The fourth dimensional algebra known as quaternions, due to Hamilton's original work is
defined as H :   a0  ai ei where the field could be R or C and the basis ei follows the
anticommutative rule ei e j   ij   ijk ek known as the constitutive relation, with  ijk the
Levi-Civita totally antisimetric tensor, so ei ei  1 , e0 e0  1 and ei e j  ek for any cyclic
permutation of {i, j, k} .
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Open Journal of Applied & Theoretical Mathematics (OJATM)
Vol. 3, No. 1, March 2017, pp. 04~07
ISSN: 2455-7102

Due to these considerations, quaternions usually have the representation

r  x0  x1i  x2 j  x3 k , xi  R or C, which will be called rectangular or standard form in the
following, with i,j,k the usual imaginary numbers.
2. GENERALIZED COORDINATES
For the generalized transformation xn  xn q  , we can write the quaternion using Einstein's
sum convention as r  xn q en , where en  1, i, j, k, so we get the transformed basis
1
1 r r  r r  2
numbers e  with scale factors h    where r means the usual
h q q  q q 
 x  
quaternionic conjugation. If this transformation satisfies J x, q  
1
det   1 , then
    
h q
the goal will be to show that the numbers e generated, fulfill the quaternionic constitutive
relations as en does, so we establish the next:

Theorem: For the coordinate transformation x  x q  with J x, q   1 , the set
1 r
e  constitutes a basis for H.
h q

Proof: The demonstration consists to show the following:

a) For the scalar part of the quaternion, e0 e0  1 . This is proved simply as

2
1  r 
e0 e0  2    1.
h0  q0 

 1 r  1 r 
b) For the vectorial part, e e     e . From definition e e    
  h q 
      
h q
1 1 r r
and as h  R , then we can write e e  , and as partial derivatives are
h h q q
quaternions themselves, and recalling the quaternionic multiplication for purely vectorial
quaternions, one gets

1  r r r r 
e e      
h h  q q q q  
   
In the case   , and as the cross product of a number with itself is zero, the last equation
1  xn xn 
reduces to e e      1 .
h  q q
2

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Open Journal of Applied & Theoretical Mathematics (OJATM)
Vol. 3, No. 1, March 2017, pp. 04~07
ISSN: 2455-7102

 r 1 r 
For    the dot product vanishes leaving e e     ...  e and after a
 q q 
h h
   

x x 1 x p
straightforward computation, and as J x, q   1 we have
1
 m n  so
h h q q  h q
e e    e

c) Finally, for the last constitutive relation we have

e e e   e  e  e  e e  e e  1.

3. CYLINDRICAL REPRESENTATION
As an example we have the cylindrical transformation x   cos , y   sin , so the
quaternion gets the following representation r  r0   cosi   sinj  zk . For it, the scale
factors are equal to the vectorial ones, this is h  1 , h  r , so the imaginary basis
1 r
determined by e  is e  cosi  sinj , e   sini  cosj . With this basis, a
h q
quaternion can be simply written as r=r₀+ρe_{ρ}+zk r  r0  e  zk , with the set of purely
imaginary numbers {e , e , k} substituting the usual ones {i, j, k} .

4. SPHERICAL REPRESENTATION
Now we apply the spherical coordinates transformation x   cos sin , y   sin sin ,
z   cos to the usual representation, so we get
r  r0   cos sini   sin sinj   cosk . Again, calculating the scale factors we get
h  1 , h  r , h  r sin and finally the basis e  cos sini  sin  sinj  cosk ,
e  cos cosi  sin cosj  sink , e   sini  cosj , so a quaternion can be simply
written as r  r0  e , with the imaginaries {e , e , e } .

Corollary: {1, e , e , k} and {1, e , e , e } are complete sets that form basis for H, known as
cilindrical and spherical representation of quaternions, respectively.

Proof: The proof consists only to show that the sets fulfill the quaternion's constitutive
relations e e     e and to prove that e e  1 . Both things are guaranteed by the
Theorem above, but also can be achieved by straightforward computation, as it's easily
checked, so {1, e , e , k} and {1, e , e , e } form two basis for H, diferent to the usual one
{i, j, k} .

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Open Journal of Applied & Theoretical Mathematics (OJATM)
Vol. 3, No. 1, March 2017, pp. 04~07
ISSN: 2455-7102

Conclusions
As we have seen, there are alternative ways to express a quaternion, not only the rectangular
one, using calculus’ generalized coordinates theory, where new purely imaginary numbers
take the place of the basis vectors from algebra. Interesting cases are those of cilindrical and
spherical forms, which could be used in problems involving symmetries.

REFERENCES

[1] Adler, S.; Quaternionic Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Fields, Oxford University
Press 586, 1995
[2] Dos Santos-Alvarado, S., Rivera-Rebolledo, J.; On Quaternionic Algebra: a compact
way to express Maxwell equations, The Sci-Tech Journal 3, No. 1 (July 2014), p 2
[3] Kravchenko, V. V.; Applied Quaternionic Analysis, Heldermann Verlag, 2003

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