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Spin Group


The spin group Spin(n), for n>=2, is the connected double cover of the special orthogonal group SO(n). It can be constructed inside the group of units of the Clifford algebra of R^n as products of an even number of unit vectors. Conjugation on vectors gives an exact sequence

 1->{1,-1}->Spin(n)->SO(n)->1.

Representations of Spin(n) which do not descend to SO(n) are the spinor representations.


See also

Clifford Algebra, Special Orthogonal Group, Spinor

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References

Lawson, H. B., Jr. and Michelsohn, M.-L. Spin Geometry. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.

Cite this as:

Weisstein, Eric W. "Spin Group." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/SpinGroup.html

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