1. Introduction
It is known that in General Relativity, the gravitational field is understood as an element or facet of a geometrical structure of the spacetime manifold, actually, we have that each gravitational field generated by a given matter distribution is modeling by a pentuple
where
M is a 4-dimensional manifold,
is a Lorentzian metric on
is the Levi–Civita connection of
is the volume element that defines the spatial orientability of
M and ↑ means that
M is time oriented, here the particles are described by triples
where
m is the particle’s mass,
q the electric charge,
is the world line and
S is the particle, which is characterized in the Clifford bundle formalism, for details see, for e.g., [
1,
2].
Clifford bundle formalism is a theory that has proven to be a convincing alternative for the study of the gravitational field, for example, in [
3] Einstein’s gravitational theory is established with this formalism, this suggests that the gravitational field is in Minkowski spacetime, in [
4] by using the Clifford bundle formalism, a Lagrangian theory of the Yang–Mills type for the gravitational field in Minkowski spacetime is developed; here, it is shown how two simple hypotheses permit the interpretation of the formalism in terms of effective Lorentzian or teleparallel geometries, in the case of a Lorentzian geometry interpretation of the theory, the field equations are shown to be equivalent to Einstein’s equations. In [
5], using this same formalism, a theory of the gravitational field is presented. This field is represented by an (1, 1)-extensor field
h that describes a plastic distortion of the Lorentz vacuum due to the presence of matter. This theory allows the introduction of different types of parallelism rules in the world manifold, which can be interpreted as distortions of the parallelism structure of Minkowski spacetime.
For the study of the theory of gravitation and other aspects of theoretical physics, the Clifford bundle formalism can be generalized over a Clifford algebra associated with a hyperbolic space, where the elements of algebra now consist of both multiforms and multivectors. The simultaneous treatment of multiforms and multivectors in a single algebra is physically motivated by the need to provide a unified description of fields and their dual counterparts, as required for the study of superfields and for formulations of gravitational theories that go beyond the standard Clifford bundle approach. This general algebraic structure is called the Hyperbolic Clifford algebra and the aim of this work is to introduce a structure into this theory, which is fundamental for the study of various topics in Theoretical Physics.
The Hyperbolic Clifford algebra of a real
n-dimensional vector space
V, oriented to the study of superfields in theoretical physics, was first introduced in [
6], where an incipient development on the hyperbolic structure described these superfields was presented, and later in [
7] the same authors present a detailed development of the hyperbolic space and the Hyperbolic Clifford algebra, oriented to the study of superfields. In this last work, the authors recall the construction of a hyperbolic space
endowed with a non-degenerate bilinear form
and they show, among other things, that for a symmetric bilinear form
b of arbitrary signature, there exists a relation of
and the exterior direct sums of the hyperbolic spaces associated with the pair
and
, they define the Clifford algebra
of
multivecfors associated with the hyperbolic space
and present several formulas that are similar to those of a Clifford algebra of multivectors on
V, which are fundamental for the development of the theory. Later in [
8], we presented an extensive review of
and a review of the differential structure of the Hyperbolic Clifford algebra, where we exposed the properties of the
duality product of multivectors and multiforms and the theory of
k multivector and
l multiform variables multivector extensors over
Also in that work, we studied the theory of parallelism structures on an arbitrary smooth manifold
M, and the concepts of covariant derivatives, deformed derivatives and relative covariant derivatives of a multivector, multiform field and extensor fields. All these theories and concepts are fundamental to the study of various physical theories, see, e.g., [
5]. However, none of the previous works have carried out a formal development of the structure of the Hyperbolic Clifford algebra, which is necessary to characterize the properties of the particles, as well as the topics developed in the context of the Clifford algebra of multivectors or multiforms. The present paper fills this gap.
Unlike standard Clifford algebras, which deal exclusively with multivectors, the Hyperbolic Clifford algebra
provides a unified framework that simultaneously accommodates both multivectors (elements of
) and multiforms (elements of
) in a single algebraic structure. This unified treatment is essential for the study of superfields in theoretical physics and for developing gravitational theories that require symmetric treatment of fields and their dual counterparts, it can be shown, see, e.g., [
7], that
is a minimal left ideal of the Hyperbolic Clifford algebra, i.e.,
=
and the elements of
are Witten superfields [
9].
The primary contributions of this paper are as follows:
- (a)
Formal development of structures for Hyperbolic Clifford algebras, extending results from standard Clifford algebra theory to this generalized hyperbolic setting, see
Table 1.
- (b)
Definition and analysis of hyperbolic orthogonal groups, Clifford–Lipschitz groups, Pin and Spin groups associated with , with explicit surjective homomorphisms to the respective orthogonal transformation groups.
- (c)
Construction of hyperbolic Clifford bundles on Lorentzian manifolds, establishing the associated vector bundle structure and reduction in the structure group.
- (d)
Unified formalism for studying gravitational fields and particles in theories that require simultaneous treatment of fields and their dual counterparts.
Table 1.
Comparison between the standard Clifford algebra and the Hyperbolic Clifford algebra .
Table 1.
Comparison between the standard Clifford algebra and the Hyperbolic Clifford algebra .
| Property | | |
|---|
| Underlying space | , | , |
| Bilinear form | Non-degenerate, signature | Neutral, signature |
| Elements | Multivectors | Multivecfors (, , ) |
| Algebra | | |
| Relation | Subalgebra of | “Mother algebra”: contains and |
| Isotropic subspaces | Depend on signature of g | V and are maximal totally isotropic |
| Superfield applications | Limited | Natural framework for superfields |
In this paper, we present the construction of the frame bundle associated with the Hyperbolic Clifford algebra and the Hyperbolic Clifford bundle of a real
n-dimensional vector space
V. We show that this is a vector bundle associated with the principal bundle of orthonormal frames. In
Section 2, we present a brief review of the Hyperbolic space
and the Hyperbolic Clifford algebra
associated with this space, as well as some identities necessary for the development of the theory. In
Section 3 we study the groups associated with
, namely the orthogonal groups and symmetries in the
space as well as the Clifford–Lipschitz groups and the Pin and groups associated with
Finally, in
Section 4, we present the construction of the frame bundle associated with
and Hyperbolic Clifford bundle, then we derive the structure for
3. Groups Associated with
Next, we will describe the groups and transformations involved in the structure of the Hyperbolic Clifford algebra, just as in the Clifford algebra of multivectors or multiforms, the associated groups are the orthogonal group, the Clifford–Lipschitz group and the Pin and groups, which in the case of are appropriately defined.
3.1. Orthogonal Transformations and Reflection in
Let
g be a symmetric bilinear form defined on a vector space
V. A map
is an isometry or an orthogonal transformation if
it immediately follows that
i.e.,
Orthogonal transformations where
are called rotations and when
are called reflections. The orthogonal group on the vector space
will be denoted by
The subgroup of
, when
is called a special orthogonal group and will be denoted by
It is very important for the development of a theory in
to specify the reflections, we know that the spaces
V and
are totally maximal isotropic subspaces of
. Then these spaces can be identified in
under the image of the inclusions
and
so given a linear map
(or similarly
), it can be seen in
, under the inclusion
(or under the inclusion
, respectively). Thus, every linear map
(or, equivalently
) induces a linear map
, called the isotropic extension of
(see [
7]), defined by
In this sense, every vecfor
can be associated with a reflection
and a reflection
(here
under the inclusions
and
, respectively) defined, respectively, by
So, we can define the isotropic extension for the space
given by
or explicitly for
we have
We immediately noticed that
We also easily observe that
is an orthogonal application with respect to the bilinear form
of
i.e.,
for all
Furthermore, we can show that
, in fact we already know that
then consider the volume element
where
is an orthonormal basis of
and define the action of
on an element
by
On the other hand, we have the relation (for example, see [
13])
, and using the properties (
8) and (
9), we have
where we obtain
from which we conclude that
is a reflection.
On the other hand, in terms of
from (
6), we have for vecfors
and the relationship
from which
so the vecfor
can be interpreted as the inverse of
since
So from (
12) and (
14) we can write
In conclusion, a reflection of the hyperplane orthogonal to the vecfor
, in terms of
, satisfies the identity (In [
7] a matrix representation of the reflection in the orthonormal basis for a hyperbolic space can be found).
3.2. The Clifford–Lipschitz Group Associated with
To define the Clifford–Lipschitz group associated with we will try to preserve the notation as in the case of multivector algebra Then, taking the vector space that is, and to simplify the notation, instead of writing we will write and denote as Following this same reasoning, the orthogonal group and special orthogonal group will be denoted by and , respectively, for
As in the multivector algebra, the most natural group of
is the group of invertible elements of
denoted by
This group acts naturally on
as an algebra of homomorphisms via its adjoint representation
or twisted adjoint representation
, respectively.
To define a cover of the group of orthogonal transformations of
one can use its twisted adjoint action on
since from (
17) it is a reflection of the hyperplane orthogonal to the vecfor
then automatically preserves the quadratic form in
i.e,
. In what follows, we will denote the twisted adjoint action
by
Thus, using
we can define the Clifford–Lipschitz group for
, as the subgroup of
defined by
where
is the graduated involution, a notation that we will also adopt in what follows.
Furthermore, the twisted adjoint action
of the group
on the hyperbolic vector space
is defined by
It is easy to show that is a linear action on and that is a group. Furthermore, note that is an isomorphism on for all . Indeed, first note that is injective, since suppose that so we have that then, multiplying on the right by and on the left by we obtain that , that is and since is finite, then is an isomorphism .
Theorem 1. The map is a surjective homomorphism whose kernel is the multiplicative group of the nonzero scalar multiples of the unit . The restriction of to is a nonzero scalar.
Proof. Let us first note that if by definition this is then
Since
in particular,
then we can separate the even part and the odd part of
this is:
where
is even and
is odd, thus
Then,
Then, setting
and
where
are even and
are odd and all are elements of
, independent of
. Substituting into the condition
for all
and taking
, one obtains
Using
and the anticommutation relations of the basis vectors, this forces
and
, i.e.,
and
are independent of
. Following the same reasoning for each basis element
with
(see [
14,
15] for full details), the argument is valid for all elements of the basis
of
, and therefore, if
does not depend on any element of the basis, then
commutes with every basis element of
. Since the center of
consists only of real scalar multiples of the identity (for
),
is a real number multiplied by the unit of
On the other hand, since
then if
we have
which implies that
Thus, from the previous equality we have
from which for
, we have that
□
Remark 3. The surjective homomorphism with kernel parallels the classical construction for standard Clifford algebras. The fundamental difference lies in the structure: while standard Clifford–Lipschitz groups act on n-dimensional vector spaces, the hyperbolic version acts on -dimensional hyperbolic structures . This allows the simultaneous representation of both multivectors () and multiforms (), providing a unified algebraic framework absent in classical theory.
3.3. The Pin and Groups of
The Pin and Spin groups are the most “reduced” subgroups of
to describe orthogonal transformations, these groups are defined by restricting the group
to those elements that have norm
That is, the group
is defined as
then, restricting the domain of the twisted adjoint action
to the group
we obtain that
The group
is the subgroup of the group
defined as
So, the twisted adjoint
restricted to group
has its image in
that is
and also
The above results can be summarized in the following theorem, similar to the case of multivector Clifford algebra
Theorem 2. Let be the surjective homomorphism studied previously, then we have the following relations depending on the domain of ρ:
- (a)
is surjective with Kernel
- (b)
is surjective with Kernel
- (c)
is surjective with Kernel
- (d)
Remark 4. The definitions of and via restriction to elements of norm follow the standard construction. However, the hyperbolic framework introduces a crucial new feature: both (the special orthogonal group) and its oriented version admit double covers via the respective groups. This is essential for constructions or representations on hyperbolic Lorentzian manifolds and for developing consistent structures on spacetime with simultaneous treatment of field components and their duals.
4. Bundle Structure of the Hyperbolic Clifford algebra
To introduce the bundle on
we must take into account that in the case of hyperbolic space, two vector bundles are involved, the tangent bundle and the cotangent bundle, on the same manifold
let us say
and
The Whitney sum of
and
is the vector bundle with total space
which is given by
with projection
given by
Then, the fiber corresponding to
of
is the direct sum of the vector spaces
To verify the local trivialization condition in
it suffices to take trivializing functions
and
for
and
, respectively, subordinated to the same cover
of
whose induced transition functions are
and
, then the trivializations for
are given by
to which transition functions correspond
remembering that
from (
24) we will have to
For details on Whitney sum, see e.g., [
16].
A very useful and fundamental property, for the next topic, of Whitney’s sum, is that if
and
are trivial vector bundles with vector spaces of dimension
n and
m, respectively, then
is a trivial vector bundle with vector space of dimension
, since there exists an isomorphism
defined by
where
with
Then, to define a structure hyperbolic on
we can use a known result due to Geroch [
17,
18], which states that for a Lorentz manifold
, a structure exists if and only if the principal bundle
is a trivial bundle. Remembering that a principal bundle is trivial if and only if it admits a global section. Therefore, Geroch’s result says that a spacetime admits a structure if and only if it admits a Lorentz frame.
Remark 5. It is natural to ask whether the existence of a hyperbolic structure imposes stricter topological constraints on M than a standard structure. The existence of a hyperbolic structure requires the existence of a global section of the principal bundle , i.e., a global hyperbolic orthonormal frame. Since the structure group has a richer topology than , the precise topological obstructions depend on the homotopy type of . A detailed analysis of these constraints lies beyond the scope of the present paper and is left as a direction for future research.
4.1. Frame Bundle on
Similar to the tangent bundle
, we will say that the hyperbolic tangent bundle
to a differentiable
n-dimensional manifold
M is associated to a principal bundle
called the frame bundle, where
is the set of frames in
The structure group of
is
(here following the notation of a principal fiber bundle, we have that the bundle
is formally written as
). Let
be the coordinates associated with a local chart
of the maximal atlas of
M. Thus, the natural basis to
on
is given by
where
are obtained from
through involution
see (
2).
To simplify the notation relating to the indices, we will place
with
Then, from (
25) we can write the natural basis of
over
as
Definition 1. A frame at is a setof linearly independent vectors such thatwhere the matrix Remark 6. In the standard tangent bundle , a frame at consists of a basis of the n-dimensional tangent space. Here, we extend this concept to the hyperbolic tangent-cotangent bundle , where frames incorporate both contravariant (tangent) and covariant (cotangent) directions. This symmetric treatment of primal and dual spaces is a defining feature of the hyperbolic structure and is essential for theories in general relativity that require simultaneous treatment of fields and their dual counterparts.
A local trivialization
of
is defined by
where
and
Here
and
and
are as in (
22) and (
23), respectively.
The action of
on a frame
is given by
where the new frame
is defined by
with
and
with
where
Conversely, given the frames
and
there exists
such that (
29) is satisfied, which means that
acts on
actively.
Let
and
be the coordinates associated with the local charts
and
, respectively, and of the maximal atlas of
If
we have
where
and note that the
are defined as in (
26) in
coordinates, i.e.,
with
Since
we have that the transition functions are
Remember that transition functions are continuous functions
and
is as in (
24), i.e.,
Now making use of the metric field defined by
where
defined in (
1), we can introduce the orthonormal frame in each
That is, for each
we can denote an orthonormal frame by
, where
with
and where
is the
-dimensional real orthogonal group. In this case, the frame bundle is said to have been reduced to the hyperbolic orthonormal frame bundle, which will be denoted by
or when
the hyperbolic frame bundle will be denoted by
In an analogous way, in a hyperbolic principal bundle of oriented orthogonal frames
we can define on a Lorentzian manifold modeling space-time and its covering bundle called hyperbolic bundle
Remember that the isomorphism defined in (
3) allows us to choose an arbitrary non-degenerate symmetric bilinear form
b. Thus, in the case of a hyperbolic space, a Lorentzian manifold is a pair
, where
is a Lorentzian metric of signature
, i.e., for all
,
where
is the hyperbolic vector Minkowski space. Then, the Hyperbolic Clifford algebra of the
will be denoted by
Most of the properties of hyperbolic algebra
are inherited from
algebra and are fundamental to this theory, for example, it is straightforward to show that every automorphism of
is inner and if we denote by
the group of invertible elements of
, then through the adjoint representation this group acts on
as an algebra of automorphisms. In addition, the group
has a natural extension in
4.2. Hyperbolic Clifford Bundle
Definition 2. The Hyperbolic Clifford bundle of the metric manifold M iswhere is the Hyperbolic Clifford algebra of the hyperbolic structure . The hyperbolic Clifford bundle
is a vector bundle associated with the principal bundle of orthonormal frames
associated to a Lorentzian manifold, i.e.,
Indeed, considering the canonical projection
and taking
an open covering of
then we can define the trivialization mappings
such that,
Thus, if
and
we have
for
where
are the transition mapping of
Then, as every automorphism of
is inner, we have
for some
On the other hand, taking into account the isomorphism (
21), we can deduce that the structure group of the hyperbolic Clifford bundle
is reducible from
to
and the transition maps for
can be taking from
Then, the hyperbolic Clifford bundle is an associated vector bundle to the principal bundle
i.e.,
Details on the construction of a vector bundle in the field of theoretical physics can be found, e.g., [
1,
19]. Finally, we can define a hyperbolic structure on
M, similarly to the case when the structure is a frame bundle, see, e.g., [
1], from which we adopt the notation.
Definition 3. A hyperbolic structure on M consists of a hyperbolic principal fiber bundle, with group ,and a mapsatisfying the following conditions, - (a)
where is the projection map of the hyperbolic bundle
- (b)
and , such that
Remark 7. The existence of a hyperbolic structure on a spacetime manifold M requires (by analogy with Geroch’s classical theorem) the existence of a global section of the principal bundle . Since the structure group is strictly larger than the standard , one might expect different topological constraints. However, a detailed analysis of these constraints and comparison with classical obstruction theory is beyond the scope of this paper and is left for future investigation.
Remark 8. Remember that a local section of the fiber bundle on an open set is a mapping such that and if the section S is said to be global. Then, any section of the hyperbolic principal fiber bundle will be called hyperbolic frame field.