GROUP THEORY IN PHYSICS An Introduction to Symmetry Principles, Group Representations, and Special Functions in Classical and Quantum Physics Wu-Ki TungPublished by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pre. Ltd. 5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore $9624 USA office: Suite 202, 1060 Main Street, River Edge, NJ 07661 UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE Library of Congress Cataloging in-Publication Data Tung, Wu-Ki. Group theory in physics. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Representations of groups. 2. Symmetry groups. I. Tile. QC174.17.G7T86 1985 530.1'5222 85-3335 ISBN 9971-966-56-5 ISBN 9971-966-57-3 (pbk) British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. First published 1985 Reprinted 1993, 2003, Copyright © 1985 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any formor by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher. For photocopying of material in this volume, please pay a copying fee through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.,222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. In this case permission to photocopy is not required from the publisher. Printed in Singapore by Mainland PressCHAPTER 3 CONTENTS PREFACE INTRODUCTION 1 Ps Di 7 2 1.2 Representations of the Discrete Translation Operators 4 1.3 Physical Consequences of Translational Symmetry 6 1.4 The Representation Functions and Fourier Analysis 8g 1.5 Symmetry Groups of Physics 9 CHAPTER 2 BASIC GROUP THEORY 2 2.1 Basic Definitions and Simple Examples 12 2.2 Further Examples, Subgroups 14 2.3 The Rearrangement Lemma and the Symmetric (Permutation) Group 16 2.4. Classes and Invariant Subgroups 19 2.5 Cosets and Factor (Quotient) Groups 21 2.6 Homomorphisms 23 7 o oti 2 Problems 25 GROUP REPRESENTATIONS 7 3.1 Representations 27 4.2 Irreducible, Inequivalent Representations 32 3.3 Unitary Representations 35 3.4 Schur's Lemmas 37 3.5 Orthonormality and Completeness Relations of Irreducible Representation Matrices 39 3.6 Orthonormality and Completeness Relations of Irreducible Characters 42 3.7 The Regular Representation 45 CHAPTER 4 3.8 Direct Product Representations, Clebsch-Gordan Coefficients 4g Problems 52 GENERAL PROPERTIES OF IRREDUCIBLE VECTORS AND OPERATORS 54 4.1 Irreducible Basis Vectors 54