Gell-Mann matrices

In mathematics, orthonormality typically implies a norm which has a value of unity (1). Gell-Mann matrices, however, are normalized to a value of 2. Thus, the trace of the pairwise product results in the ortho-normalization condition

${\displaystyle \operatorname {tr} (\lambda _{i}\lambda _{j})=2\delta _{ij},}$

where ${\displaystyle \delta _{ij}}$ is the Kronecker delta.

This is so the embedded Pauli matrices corresponding to the three embedded subalgebras of SU(2) are conventionally normalized. In this three-dimensional matrix representation, the Cartan subalgebra is the set of linear combinations (with real coefficients) of the two matrices ${\displaystyle \lambda _{3}}$ and ${\displaystyle \lambda _{8}}$, which commute with each other.

There are three significant SU(2) subalgebras:

• ${\displaystyle \{\lambda _{1},\lambda _{2},\lambda _{3}\}}$
• ${\displaystyle \{\lambda _{4},\lambda _{5},x\},}$ and
• ${\displaystyle \{\lambda _{6},\lambda _{7},y\},}$

where the x and y are linear combinations of ${\displaystyle \lambda _{3}}$ and ${\displaystyle \lambda _{8}}$. The SU(2) Casimirs of these subalgebras mutually commute.

However, any unitary similarity transformation of these subalgebras will yield SU(2) subalgebras. There is an uncountable number of such transformations.

The 8 generators of SU(3) satisfy the commutation and anti-commutation relations[3]

${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\left[\lambda _{a},\lambda _{b}\right]&=2i\sum _{c}f^{abc}\lambda _{c},\\\{\lambda _{a},\lambda _{b}\}&={\frac {4}{3}}\delta _{ab}I+2\sum _{c}d^{abc}\lambda _{c},\end{aligned}}}$

with the structure constants

${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}f^{abc}&=-{\frac {1}{4}}i\operatorname {tr} (\lambda _{a}[\lambda _{b},\lambda _{c}]),\\d^{abc}&={\frac {1}{4}}\operatorname {tr} (\lambda _{a}\{\lambda _{b},\lambda _{c}\}).\end{aligned}}}$

The structure constants ${\displaystyle f^{abc}}$ are completely antisymmetric in the three indices, generalizing the antisymmetry of the Levi-Civita symbol ${\displaystyle \epsilon _{jkl}}$ of SU(2). For the present order of Gell-Mann matrices they take the values

${\displaystyle f^{123}=1\ ,\quad f^{147}=f^{165}=f^{246}=f^{257}=f^{345}=f^{376}={\frac {1}{2}}\ ,\quad f^{458}=f^{678}={\frac {\sqrt {3}}{2}}\ .}$

In general, they evaluate to zero, unless they contain an odd count of indices from the set {2,5,7}, corresponding to the antisymmetric (imaginary) λs.

Using these commutation relations, the product of Gell-Mann matrices can be written as

${\displaystyle \lambda _{a}\lambda _{b}={\frac {1}{2}}([\lambda _{a},\lambda _{b}]+\{\lambda _{a},\lambda _{b}\})={\frac {2}{3}}\delta _{ab}I+\sum _{c}\left(d^{abc}+if^{abc}\right)\lambda _{c},}$

where I is the identity matrix.

Since the eight matrices and the identity are a complete trace-orthogonal set spanning all 3×3 matrices, it is straightforward to find two Fierz completeness relations, (Li & Cheng, 4.134), analogous to that satisfied by the Pauli matrices. Namely, using the dot to sum over the eight matrices and using Greek indices for their row/column indices, the following identities hold,

${\displaystyle \delta _{\beta }^{\alpha }\delta _{\delta }^{\gamma }={\frac {1}{3}}\delta _{\delta }^{\alpha }\delta _{\beta }^{\gamma }+{\frac {1}{2}}\lambda _{\delta }^{\alpha }\cdot \lambda _{\beta }^{\gamma }}$

and

${\displaystyle \lambda _{\beta }^{\alpha }\cdot \lambda _{\delta }^{\gamma }={\frac {16}{9}}\delta _{\delta }^{\alpha }\delta _{\beta }^{\gamma }-{\frac {1}{3}}\lambda _{\delta }^{\alpha }\cdot \lambda _{\beta }^{\gamma }~.}$

One may prefer the recast version, resulting from a linear combination of the above,

${\displaystyle \lambda _{\beta }^{\alpha }\cdot \lambda _{\delta }^{\gamma }=2\delta _{\delta }^{\alpha }\delta _{\beta }^{\gamma }-{\frac {2}{3}}\delta _{\beta }^{\alpha }\delta _{\delta }^{\gamma }~.}$

The squared sum of the Gell-Mann matrices gives the quadratic Casimir operator, a group invariant,

${\displaystyle C=\sum _{i=1}^{8}\lambda _{i}\lambda _{i}={\frac {16}{3}}I}$

where ${\displaystyle I\,}$is 3×3 identity matrix. There is another, independent, cubic Casimir operator, as well.