Root systems & Clifford algebras: from symmetries of viruses to $E_8$ & ADE correspondences

I discuss the symmetry of fullerenes, viruses and geodesic domes within a unified framework of icosadeltahedral representation of these objects. The icosadeltahedral symmetry is explained in details by examination of all of these structures. Using Euler's theorem on polyhedra, it is shown how to calculate the number of vertices, edges, and faces in domes, and number of atoms, bonds and pentagonal and hexagonal rings in fullerenes. Caspar-Klug classification of viruses is elab...

We discuss how transformations in a three dimensional euclidean space can be described in terms of the Clifford algebra $\mathcal{C}\ell_{3,3}$ of the quadratic space $\mathbb{R}^{3,3}$. We show that this algebra describes in a unified way the operations of reflection, rotations (circular and hyperbolic), translation, shear and non-uniform scale. Moreover, using the concept of Hodge duality, we define an operation called cotranslation, and show that the operation of perspecti...

Affine subgroups having the same Coxeter number with the affine Coxeter groups W(An), W(Dn), and W(En) are constructed by graph folding technique. The affine groups W(Cn) and W(Bn) are obtained from the Coxeter groups W(A2n-1) and W(D2n-1) respectively. The affine groups W(E6), W(D6) and W(E8) lead to the affine groups W(F4), W(H3), and W(H4) respectively by graph folding. The latter two are the non-crystallographic groups where W(H3) plays a special role in the quasicrystall...

We study Coxeter diagrams of some unitary reflection groups. Using solely the combinatorics of diagrams, we give a new proof of the classification of root lattices defined over $\cE = \ZZ[e^{2 \pi i/3}]$: there are only four such lattices, namely, the $\cE$-lattices whose real forms are $A_2$, $D_4$, $E_6$ and $E_8$. Next, we address the issue of characterizing the diagrams for unitary reflection groups, a question that was raised by Brou\'{e}, Malle and Rouquier. To this end...

It is shown that graphs that generalize the ADE Dynkin diagrams and have appeared in various contexts of two-dimensional field theory may be regarded in a natural way as encoding the geometry of a root system. After recalling what are the conditions satisfied by these graphs, we define a bilinear form on a root system in terms of the adjacency matrices of these graphs and undertake the study of the group generated by the reflections in the hyperplanes orthogonal to these root...

The architecture of infinite structures with non-crystallographic symmetries can be modeled via aperiodic tilings, but a systematic construction method for finite structures with non-crystallographic symmetry at different radial levels is still lacking. We present here a group theoretical method for the construction of finite nested point set with non-crystallographic symmetry. Akin to the construction of quasicrystals, we embed a non-crystallographic group $G$ into the point...

We investigate the class of root systems R obtained by extending an irreducible root system by a torsion-free group G. In this context there is a Weyl group W and a group U with the presentation by conjugation. We show under additional hypotheses that the kernel of the natural homomorphism from U to W is isomorphic to the kernel of the homomorphism from the abelianization of U to that of W. For this we introduce the concept of a symmetric system, a discrete version of the con...

We tackle several problems related to a finite irreducible crystallographic root system $\Phi$ in the real vector space $\mathbb E$. In particular, we study the combinatorial structure of the subsets of $\Phi$ cut by affine subspaces of $\mathbb E$ and their projections. As byproducts, we obtain easy algebraic combinatorial proofs of refinements of Oshima's Lemma and of a result by Kostant, a partial result towards the resolution of a problem by Hopkins and Postnikov, and new...

Already Hermann Grassmann's father Justus (1829, 1830) published two works on the geometrical description of crystals, influenced by the earlier works of C.S. Weiss (1780-1856) on three main crystal forces governing crystal formation. In his 1840 essay on the derivation of crystal shapes from the general law of crystal formation Hermann established the notion of a three-dimensional vectorial system of forces with rational coefficients, that represent the interior crystal stru...

We show that the Young tableaux theory and constructions of the irreducible representations of the Weyl groups of type A, B and D, Iwahori-Hecke algebras of types A, B, and D, the complex reflection groups G(r,p,n) and the corresponding cyclotomic Hecke algebras H_{r,p,n}, can be obtained, in all cases, from the affine Hecke algebra of type A. The Young tableaux theory was extended to affine Hecke algebras (of general Lie type) in recent work of A. Ram. We also show how (in g...