Commutativity of the Heisenberg Group
Authors
Burns, Sessie A.
Issue Date
2010
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
The Heisenberg group, named for Werner Heisenberg, is the group of upper
triangular 3x3 matrices with ones down the diagonal. The group is not abelian,
but shows many signs of"commutativity. It's center and commutator subgroup
are as large and small (respectively) as they can be without being abelian. The
nilpotent and solvable lengths are as small as they can be without the group
being abelian. All of these.suggest some level.of commutativity. However when
we look to the conjugacy classes and the probability of commuting we find that
this commutativity dissipates, meaning it is. not as commutative as a. first look
would suggest.
Description
iii, 18 p.
Citation
Publisher
Kalamazoo College
License
U.S. copyright laws protect this material. Commercial use or distribution of this material is not permitted without prior written permission of the copyright holder.