Applications of group theory in crystallography

Abstract

Group theory is a powerful tool for studying symmetric physical systems. Such systems include, in particular, molecules and crystals with symmetry. Group theory serves to explain the most important characteristics of atomic spectra. Group theory is also applied to the problems of atomic and nuclear physics. This paper gives examples of the use of the apparatus of group theory in research on crystallography, quantum mechanics, elementary particle physics. In particular, in these studies matrix groups and representations of unitary groups are actively used. For such groups we give an overview of the results on their recognition by the spectrum (by the orders of the elements of the group). This direction has been intensively developed in recent years both in our country and abroad. Recognition of finite simple non-Abelian groups by spectrum has been studied for last thirty years in Yekaterinburg at the Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics of the Ural Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in Chelyabinsk Federal University and in the Novosibirsk Institute of Mathematics of Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Some simple non-Abelian groups are not recognizable by their spectra. We have proposed an approach for recognizing groups by the bottom layer. The bottom layer of a group is the set of its elements of prime orders. A group is called recognizable by the bottom layer under additional conditions if it is uniquely restored by the bottom layer under these conditions. The paper considers some examples of simple non-Abelian finite groups that are not recognizable by spectra. For these examples, simultaneous recognition by spectrum and by the bottom layer is proved.