mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

, the Cayley plane (or octonionic projective plane) P²(O) is a projective plane over the

octonion In mathematics, the octonions are a normed division algebra over the real numbers, a kind of hypercomplex number system. The octonions are usually represented by the capital letter O, using boldface or blackboard bold \mathbb O. Octonions have e ...

s.Baez (2002). The Cayley plane was discovered in 1933 by Ruth Moufang, and is named after

Arthur Cayley Arthur Cayley (; 16 August 1821 – 26 January 1895) was a prolific United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, British mathematician who worked mostly on algebra. He helped found the modern British school of pure mathematics. As a child, C ...

for his 1845 paper describing the octonions.

Properties

In the Cayley plane, lines and points may be defined in a natural way so that it becomes a 2-dimensional

projective space In mathematics, the concept of a projective space originated from the visual effect of perspective, where parallel lines seem to meet ''at infinity''. A projective space may thus be viewed as the extension of a Euclidean space, or, more generally ...

, that is, a projective plane. It is a non-Desarguesian plane, where

Desargues' theorem In projective geometry, Desargues's theorem, named after Girard Desargues, states: :Two triangles are in perspective ''axially'' if and only if they are in perspective ''centrally''. Denote the three vertices of one triangle by and , and tho ...

does not hold. More precisely, as of 2005, there are two objects called Cayley planes, namely the real and the complex Cayley plane. The real Cayley plane is the symmetric space F₄/Spin(9), where F₄ is a compact form of an

exceptional Lie group In mathematics, a simple Lie group is a connected non-abelian Lie group ''G'' which does not have nontrivial connected normal subgroups. The list of simple Lie groups can be used to read off the list of simple Lie algebras and Riemannian symm ...

and Spin(9) is the

spin group In mathematics the spin group Spin(''n'') page 15 is the double cover of the special orthogonal group , such that there exists a short exact sequence of Lie groups (when ) :1 \to \mathrm_2 \to \operatorname(n) \to \operatorname(n) \to 1. As a L ...

of nine-dimensional

Euclidean space Euclidean space is the fundamental space of geometry, intended to represent physical space. Originally, that is, in Euclid's Elements, Euclid's ''Elements'', it was the three-dimensional space of Euclidean geometry, but in modern mathematics ther ...

(realized in F₄). It admits a cell decomposition into three cells, of dimensions 0, 8 and 16.Iliev and Manivel (2005). The complex Cayley plane is a

homogeneous space In mathematics, particularly in the theories of Lie groups, algebraic groups and topological groups, a homogeneous space for a group ''G'' is a non-empty manifold or topological space ''X'' on which ''G'' acts transitively. The elements of ' ...

under the complexification of the group E₆ by a parabolic subgroup ''P''₁. It is the closed orbit in the projectivization of the minimal complex representation of E₆. The complex Cayley plane consists of two complex F₄-orbits: the closed orbit is a quotient of the complexified F₄ by a parabolic subgroup, the open orbit is the complexification of the real Cayley plane,Ahiezer (1983). retracting to it.

Notes

References

* * * * * *Helmut Salzmann et al. "Compact projective planes. With an introduction to octonion geometry"; de Gruyter Expositions in Mathematics, 21. Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin, 1995. xiv+688 pp. Projective geometry {{geometry-stub

Properties

See also

Notes

References