Thursday, 19 December 2013

gr.group theory - Sp(2n) intersect Sp(2n,H)? (Please read for explanation of notation)

First let me fix some notation:



Let $O(n)$ be the group of $n times n$ real matrices $T$ which are "orthogonal", $U(n)$ be the group of $n times n$ complex matrices $T$ which are "unitary" and $Sp(n)$ be the group of $n times n$ quaternionic matrices $T$ which are "symplectic" (in all three cases $T^hT=TT^h=I$).



Let $Sp(2n,F)$ be the group of $2n times 2n$ matrices that preserve a non-degenerate skew-symmetric bilinear form on $F^{2n}$, where $F$ is the field of real $mathbb{R}$, complex $mathbb{C}$ or quaternion $mathbb{H}$ numbers (skew-field in the case of quaternions).



The following are true:



$O(2n) cap Sp(2n,mathbb{R}) = U(n)$



$U(2n) cap Sp(2n,mathbb{C}) = Sp(n)$



So my question is about the next logical step. Clearly both $Sp(2n)$ and $Sp(2n,mathbb{H})$ are groups acting on $mathbb{H}^{2n}$ but do they intersect to a non-empty group? In other words what is $X(n)$ below (if anything)?



$Sp(2n) cap Sp(2n,mathbb{H}) = X(n)$?



PS 1
This is a question I naturally asked myself after reading Baez's "Symplectic, Quaternionic, Fermionic" blog posting: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/symplectic.html



PS 2
By writing $X(n)$ instead of $X(2n)$ above I am hinting something related to Octonions but I don't want to scare off anyone.

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