In mathematics, the Iwasawa decomposition (aka KAN from its expression) of a semisimple Lie group generalises the way a square real matrix can be written as a product of an orthogonal matrix and an upper triangular matrix (QR decomposition, a consequence of Gram–Schmidt orthogonalization). It is named after Kenkichi Iwasawa, the Japanese mathematician who developed this method.[1]
- G is a connected semisimple real Lie group.
- is the Lie algebra of G
- is the complexification of .
- θ is a Cartan involution of
- is the corresponding Cartan decomposition
- is a maximal abelian subalgebra of
- Σ is the set of restricted roots of , corresponding to eigenvalues of acting on .
- Σ+ is a choice of positive roots of Σ
- is a nilpotent Lie algebra given as the sum of the root spaces of Σ+
- K, A, N, are the Lie subgroups of G generated by and .
Then the Iwasawa decomposition of is
and the Iwasawa decomposition of G is
meaning there is an analytic diffeomorphism (but not a group homomorphism) from the manifold to the Lie group , sending .
The dimension of A (or equivalently of ) is equal to the real rank of G.
Iwasawa decompositions also hold for some disconnected semisimple groups G, where K becomes a (disconnected) maximal compact subgroup provided the center of G is finite.
The restricted root space decomposition is
where is the centralizer of in and is the root space. The number
is called the multiplicity of .
If G=SLn(R), then we can take K to be the orthogonal matrices, A to be the positive diagonal matrices with determinant 1, and N to be the unipotent group consisting of upper triangular matrices with 1s on the diagonal.
For the case of n=2, the Iwasawa decomposition of G=SL(2,R) is in terms of
For the symplectic group G=Sp(2n, R ), a possible Iwasawa decomposition is in terms of