Variations on a theme of Heisenberg, Pauli and Weyl**Dedicated to the memory of my teacher and friend Moshé Flato on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of his death.

Abstract

The parentage between Weyl pairs, the generalized Pauli group and the unitary group is investigated in detail. We start from an abstract definition of the Heisenberg–Weyl group on the field and then switch to the discrete Heisenberg–Weyl group or generalized Pauli group on a finite ring . The main characteristics of the latter group, an abstract group of order d3 noted Pd, are given (conjugacy classes and irreducible representation classes or equivalently Lie algebra of dimension d3 associated with Pd). Leaving the abstract sector, a set of Weyl pairs in dimension d is derived from a polar decomposition of SU(2) closely connected to angular momentum theory. Then, a realization of the generalized Pauli group Pd and the construction of generalized Pauli matrices in dimension d are revisited in terms of Weyl pairs. Finally, the Lie algebra of the unitary group U(d) is obtained as a subalgebra of the Lie algebra associated with Pd. This leads to a development of the Lie algebra of U(d) in a basis consisting of d2 generalized Pauli matrices. In the case where d is a power of a prime integer, the Lie algebra of SU(d) can be decomposed into d − 1 Cartan subalgebras.