Adjoint Representation

What’s adjoint representation?

We also call such group abelian, meaning Tg and gT commute, and if it doesn’t transform in such a way, it’s non-abelian.

It’s hard to understand the Einstein symbols in this representation formula, let’s use a concrete example to illustrate:

This leads to deep understanding that

Group typeWhat happens
Abelian (U(1))(gTg^{-1}=T) → no self-interaction
Non-abelian (SU(2), SU(3))(gTg^{-1}\neq T) → bosons carry charge

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