Sporadic and Exceptional
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Sporadic and Exceptional Yang-Hui He1 & John McKay2 1 Department of Mathematics, City University, London, EC1V 0HB, UK and Merton College, University of Oxford, OX14JD, UK and School of Physics, NanKai University, Tianjin, 300071, P.R. China [email protected] 2 Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Concordia University, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, Montreal, Quebec, H3G 1M8, Canada [email protected] Abstract We study the web of correspondences linking the exceptional Lie algebras E8;7;6 and the sporadic simple groups Monster, Baby and the largest Fischer group. This is done via the investigation of classical enumerative problems on del Pezzo surfaces in relation to the cusps of certain subgroups of P SL(2; R) for the relevant McKay- Thompson series in Generalized Moonshine. We also study Conway's sporadic group, as well as its association with the Horrocks-Mumford bundle. arXiv:1505.06742v1 [math.AG] 25 May 2015 1 Contents 1 Introduction and Summary 3 2 Rudiments and Nomenclature 5 2.1 P SL(2; Z) and P SL(2; R)............................6 2.2 The Monster . 11 2.2.1 Monstrous Moonshine . 14 2.3 Exceptional Affine Lie Algebras . 15 2.4 Classical Enumerative Geometry . 18 3 Correspondences 20 3.1 Desire for Adjacency . 21 3.1.1 Initial Observation on M and Ec8 .................... 21 3.1.2 The Baby and Ec7 ............................. 22 3.1.3 Fischer and Ec6 .............................. 22 3.2 Cusp Numbers . 23 3.2.1 Cusp Character . 24 3.3 The Baby and E7 again . 28 3.4 Fischer's Group . 30 3.5 Conway's Group . 32 3.6 Genus Zero . 34 2 4 The Horrocks-Mumford Bundle: A Digression 35 4.1 Symmetry Groups . 36 4.2 The HM Quintic Calabi-Yau Threefold . 38 4.3 Embedding into Conway's Group . 40 A Character Table of GHM 42 A.1 Details of Construction . 43 1 Introduction and Summary The classification of mathematical structures oftentimes confronts the dichotomy between the regular and the exceptional wherein the former generically organizes into some infinite families whilst the latter tantalizes with what at first may seem an eclectic collage but out of whose initial disparity emerges striking order. The earliest and perhaps most well-known example is that of the classification of symmetries in R3, the regulars are the infinite families of the cyclic and dihedral groups of the regular n-gon and the exceptionals are the symmetry groups of the five Platonic solids. Similarly, the classification of Lie algebras gave us the Dynkin diagrams of the infinite families of classical groups which are the familiar isometries of vector spaces, in addition, there are the five exceptional diagrams. Indeed, the relation between the R3 symmetries and the simply laced cases of the (affine) Lie algebras has come to be known as the McKay Correspondence, which now occupies a cornerstone of modern algebraic geometry and representation theory. Another highlight example is of course the classification of finite simple groups which, after decades of arduous work, is by now complete. The regulars here are the infinite families 3 of cyclic groups of prime order, as well as the classical Lie groups over finite fields, while the exceptionals are known as the 26 sporadic groups, the largest of which is the Monster, of tremendous size. Here, the second author's old observation that 196; 884 = 196; 883 + 1, relating the Monster and the elliptic j-function, prompted the field of Moonshine [1,28]. These above illustrative cases indeed exemplify how astute recognition of exceptional structures can help to unravel new mathematics of profound depth. Of particular curiosity is the less well-known fact - in parallel to the above identity - that the constant term of the j- invariant, viz., 744, satisfies 744 = 3×248. The number 248 is, of course, the dimension of the adjoint of the largest exceptional algebra E8. In fact, that j should encode the representations of E8 was settled [41] long before the final proof of the Moonshine conjectures [29]. This relationship between the largest sporadic group and the largest exceptional algebra would connect the McKay Correspondence to Moonshine and thereby weave another beautiful thread into the panoramic tapestry of mathematics. Over the years, there have been various generalizations of Monstrous Moonshine (cf. [7]) in mathematics and, more recently, in physics [16{20]. Of the vast literature, we will focus on relating the exceptional algebras and the sporadics, review the pertinent background and present a new set of correspondences, which though numeralogically intriguing, remain fundamentally mysterious and await further exploration. To guide the reader, we summarize the web of inter-connections in Figure 1 as well as the ensuing list which point to the relevant sections: • McKay Correspondence between Eb6;7;8 Dynkin diagrams and symmetries of Platonic solids in (2.25) and (2.26); • Dimensions of fundamental representations of E6;7;8 in (2.29), number of lines (respec- tively bitangents and tritangents) as well as (−1)-curves in classical geometry of del Pezzo surfaces and curves thereon in Table 1; • Classes of involutions in M and the nodes of the Ec8 Dynkin diagram in (3.5), similarly, 0 involutory classes in 2:B and Ec7 in (3.6), and 3-transposition classes of 3:F i24 and Ec6 in (3.7); 0 • Cusp number sums of the invariant groups of McKay-Thompson series for M; 2:B; 3:F i24 and the enumerative geometries for the del Pezzo surfaces dP3;2;1 in Observations 1, 2, and 3; 4 Figure 1: The web of correspondences amongst the exceptional Lie algebras and sporadic groups, via some classical enumerative geometry and modular subgroups. • Conway's group Co1 and the Horrocks-Mumford bundle in Observation 5. The outline of the paper is as follows. We begin with setting the notation for the various subjects upon which we will touch, as well as reviewing the rudiments in as a self-contained manner as possible in x2, before delving into our correspondences in x3. We end with a digression on the Horrocks-Mumford bundle in x4. 2 Rudiments and Nomenclature First let us set the notation, and refresh the reader's mind on the characteristics of the various dramatis personae. 5 2.1 P SL(2; Z) and P SL(2; R) We will denote the modular group as ! a b Γ := P SL(2; Z) = f j a; b; c; d 2 Z; ad − bc = 1g={±Ig : (2.1) c d The two important subgroups of Γ for our purposes are the congruence subgroups: Γ0(N) := fγ 2 Γ j c mod N = 0g ; ! a b Γ(N) := fγ 2 Γ j mod N = Ig ⊂ Γ0(N) : (2.2) c d Cusps: The action of Γ on the upper-half plane H = fz : Im(z) > 0g by linear-fractional az+b transformation z 7! cz+d is fundamental. In addition to H, of particular interest is the set of cusps Q [ f1g on the boundary real axis. These are rational points which are taken to themselves under the linear-fractional maps in Γ and are the only points on the real axis which should be adjoined to H when considering the action of Γ. Thus, we will generally speak of the extended upper half plane ∗ H := H[ Q [ f1g : (2.3) For any subgroup Θ of Γ (including itself), we can define the set of cusps as C(Θ) := fΘ-orbits of Q [ f1gg: (2.4) An important fact about congruence subgroups Θ is that C(Θ) is finite1 and we will hence- forth call the number of elements in C(Θ) the cusp number. Indeed, with respect to the full modular group, for any two points in the extended upper half-plane 2 x; y 2 Q[f1g, there exists a γ 2 Γ such that γ(x) = y. Thus, the cusp number of the full modular group is 1, i.e., jC(Γ)j= 1. 1 As above, we can show this using representatives modulo the level of the congruence and see the image of x = px . qx 2 This can be easily shown by writing, as explicit fractions, x = px and y = py and solving for integer qx qy a px +b py qx a; b; c; d such that q = c px +d and ad − bc = 1. y qx 6 Q 1 For the Hecke groups, the index of Γ0(N) in Γ is N 1 + p and pjN X jC(Γ0(N)j= φ(gcd(d; N=d)) ; (2.5) djN;d>0 Q 1 where φ(m) = m 1 − p is the standard Euler totient counting the number of positive pjm integers between 1 and m, inclusive, which are co-prime to m. Modular Curves: By adjoining appropriate cusps which serve as compactification points, we can form the quotient ΘnH∗ of the extended upper half plane by any subgroups Θ of Γ. The first classical result 3 , dating to Klein and Dedekind, is that for the full modular group Γ, this quotient is the Riemann sphere: ∗ 1 ΓnH ' P : (2.6) In general, we can quotient H∗ by a congruence subgroup and obtain a Riemann surface, dubbed the modular curve. Commonly, we denote the modular curves associated to Γ, Γ0(N) 1 and Γ(N) respectively as X(Γ) ' P , X0(N) and X(N). What subgroups Θ also have X(Θ) ' P1? This so-called genus zero property is important in several contexts and subgroups possessing it are quite rare. For example, that there are only 33 (finite-index) torsion-free genus zero subgroups was the classification of [11] and the physical interpretation, the subject of [20,24].