Arun Ram
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
University of Melbourne
Parkville, VIC 3010 Australia
aram@unimelb.edu.au
Last update: 10 September 2013
The affine braid group of type C
Let
defining the bilinear map Let
The following are equivalent presentations of the affine braid group.
(a)
Generators:
Relations:
(b)
Generators: and
Relations:
(c)
Generators: and
for
Relations:
for and
Proof.
Rewrite the relations (a) in the form
Generators (b) in terms of generators (a):
for and
Pictorially,
Generators (a) in terms of generators (b):
Generators (c) in terms of generators (b): If
then and
Relations (b) from relations (a): The relations (b1) are the same as the relations (a1).
The picture
gives
for
proving relations (b2).
From the picture of
for and
with
So
proving relations (b3).
From the picture of
proving relations (b4).
Relations (a) from relations (b): The relations (a1) are the same as the relations (b1).
Note that if then
which is also visible from the picture
If then
and
which proves the second set of relations in (a2).
Since and
we have
Then
gives
since
for
Multiplying on the right by
gives
This establishes the first relation in (a2).
Relations (c) from relations (b): Relations (c1) are the same as relations (b1). The first set of relations in (c2) are equivalent to the relations in (b2).
If and
then
and
Thus the second set of relations in (c2) are equivalent to
for and
Relations (c4) and (c6) are relations (b3) and (b4) and the computations
and
establish the relations in (c3) and (c5).
Relations (b) from relations (c): The relations (b1) are the same as the relations (c1).
The relations in (b2) are equivalent to the first set of relations in (c2).
In view of the equivalence of the second set of relations in (c2) with the relations in (c3-6),
the relations in (b2), (b3) and (b4) are a subset of the relations in (c2).