The Principal SO(1,2) subalgebra of a hyperbolic Kac-Moody algebra

Abstract

The analog of the principal SO(3) subalgebra of a finite-dimensional simple Lie algebra can be defined for any hyperbolic Kac–Moody algebra g(A) associated with a symmetrizable Cartan matrix A, and coincides with the non-compact algebra SO(1,2). We exhibit the decomposition of g(A) into representations of SO(1,2). With the exception of the adjoint SO(1,2) algebra itself, all of these representations are unitary. We compute the Casimir eigenvalues; the associated ‘exponents’ are complex and noninteger.