Thursday, 7 June 2018

group theory - Fundamental Representation of $SU(3)$ is a complex representation


Let in a $D(R)$ dimensional representation of $SU(N)$ the generators, $T^a$s follow the following commutation rule:
$\qquad \qquad \qquad [T^a_R, T^b_R]=if^{abc}T^c_R$.


Now if $-(T^a_R)^* = T^a_R $, the representation $R$ is real. Again if we can find a unitary matrix, $V(\neq I)$ such that


$ \qquad \qquad \qquad -(T^a_R)^*=V^{-1} T^a_R V \quad \forall a $


then the representation $R$ is pseudoreal.


If a representation is neither real nor pseudoreal, the representation $R$ is complex.


Claim: One way to show that a representation is complex is to show that at least one generator matrix $T^a_R$ has eigenvalues that do not come in plus-minus pairs.


Now let us consider $SU(3)$ group. The generators in the fundamental representation are given by


$T^a =\lambda^a/2; \quad a=1,...8$,

where $\lambda^a$s are the Gell-Mann matrices. We see that $T^8$ has eigenvalues $(1/\sqrt{12}, 1/\sqrt{12}, -1/\sqrt{3} )$.


My doubt is:


According to the claim, is the fundamental representation of $SU(3)$ a complex representation?




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