1. Introduction
Let
be a compact connected Lie group with Lie algebra
,
a normal subgroup of
with Lie algebra
, and
a normal subgroup of
with Lie algebra
. Chevalley and Eilenberg [1] established a fundamental bridge between the geometry of Lie groups and the algebra of their Lie algebras by proving that the de Rham cohomology of
is isomorphic to the cohomology of its Lie algebra:
This isomorphism allows one to translate geometric problems into tractable algebraic ones.
This paper investigates the cohomology of the quotient manifold
. Specifically, we study the relationship between the de Rham cohomology
of the quotient and the Lie algebra cohomology
of the quotient Lie algebra
, which provides a powerful tool for analyzing the topology and geometry of such spaces. We establish the following isomorphism, generalizing the Chevalley-Eilenberg result:
Here, the group
acts on
via left multiplication, and
acts on the Lie algebra
via the adjoint representation. Our approach constructs explicit isomorphisms of cochain complexes linking invariant differential forms on
to cochains on
. These isomorphisms collectively yield the main theorem (Theorem 1). This result extends the foundational work of Chevalley and Eilenberg to a broader class of quotient manifolds and provides a concrete algebraic framework for computing their cohomology.
This paper is organized as follows: In Sec. 2, we recall basic concepts of de Rham cohomology and Lie algebra cohomology. In Sec. 3, we give a detailed proof of the isomorphism between de Rham cohomology of the quotient manifold and its Lie algebra cohomology.
2. Preliminary Knowledge
We recall the definitions and basic properties of Lie group cohomology and Lie algebras cohomology.
Definition 1. [2] Let
be a field. A Lie algebra
is a vector space over
with a bilinear bracket
:
satisfying the following axioms for all
and
:
1) Bilinearity:
;
2) Antisymmetry:
;
3) Jacobi identity:
.
Definition 2. [2] Let
be a field and
be a unital ring. If the additive group of
forms a
-vector space, and
for all
, and
, then
is called an associative algebra over
, or simply a
-algebra.
Let
be an associative algebra over a field
. The commutator bracket
defines a Lie algebra structure on the underlying
-vector space of
.
Definition 3. [2] A subspace
of a Lie algebra
is called an ideal of
if it satisfies
.
Definition 4. [2] Let
be an ideal of a Lie algebra
. Define a Lie bracket operation in the quotient space
as follows:
then the quotient space
is a Lie algebra, called the quotient algebra of
by
.
Definition 5. [3] Let
and
be Lie algebras over a field
. A
-linear map
is a Lie algebra homomorphism if for any
A canonical example is a homomorphism from a Lie algebra
to
, the general linear Lie algebra on a vector space
.
Definition 6. [3] A representation of a Lie algebra
over a field
is a pair
, where
is a
-vector space and
is a Lie algebra homomorphism.
Definition 7. [3] For any Lie algebra
, the adjoint representation is the homomorphism
, defined by
.
We now recall some fundamental concepts of smooth manifolds and establish the correspondence between Lie groups and Lie algebras.
Definition 8. [4] Let
be an
-dimensional topological manifold. If a smooth structure
is specified on
, then
is called an
-dimensional smooth manifold.
Definition 9. [4] Let
be a smooth manifold. A function
is called smooth if it is smooth with respect to the smooth structure of
. The set of all smooth functions on
is denoted by
.
Definition 10. [5] Let
be a smooth manifold and
. Denote by
the algebra of germs of smooth functions at
. A tangent vector at
is a linear map
satisfying the following axioms: for all
and
,
1)
;
2)
.
The tangent space at
, denoted
, is the vector space of all tangent vectors.
Definition 11. [5] A cotangent vector at
is a linear functional
. The cotangent space
is the dual space of
.
Definition 12. [5] Let
be a smooth manifold. The tangent bundle of
is defined as
, equipped with a natural smooth structure that makes it a smooth manifold.
Definition 13. [6] A smooth vector field on a smooth manifold
is a smooth map
such that
, where
is the canonical projection. In other words,
is a smooth section of the tangent bundle.
The set of all smooth vector fields on
is denoted by
.
Definition 14. [7] Let
be a smooth manifold. A differential
-form on
is a smooth section of the
-th exterior power of the cotangent bundle, i.e., a smooth map
such that
for each
The set of all differential
-forms on
is denoted by
.
Property 1. [6] Let
be a smooth manifold. There exists a unique operator
, called the exterior derivative, satisfying the following properties:
1)
is a linear map.
2)
,
,
.
3) For
,
is the ordinary differential of
.
4)
.
Proposition 1. [6] The space
of differential
-forms on a smooth manifold
is isomorphic as a
-module to the space of alternating
-multilinear maps
.
Proposition 2. [8] (Invariant formula) For any
and
,
where
denotes that the element
is omitted.
Definition 15. [6] Let
and
be smooth manifolds and
a smooth map. For each
, the pushforward of
at
is the linear map
defined by
for all
and
.
Definition 16. [6] Let
be a smooth map. The pullback induced by
is the map
defined by
for all
and
.
Property 2. [6] Let
be a smooth map. The pullback
satisfies the following properties:
1)
is a linear map.
2) For all
and
,
.
3)
.
Definition 17. [9] A Lie group is a group
that is also a smooth manifold such that the group operations
and inversion
are smooth maps.
For any fixed
, the maps
and
are smooth diffeomorphisms, called left multiplication and right multiplication, respectively.
The group
acts smoothly on
via
If
, this action gives the conjugation by
, denoted
.
Definition 18. [7] Let a Lie group
acts smoothly on a smooth manifold
via a map
. For each
, denote by
the smooth map
given by the action. A differential form
is called
-invariant if
, for all
.
The space of all
-invariant
-forms on
is denoted by
.
Definition 19. [9] Let
be a Lie group. A vector field
is left-invariant if for all
,
The set of all left-invariant vector fields on
forms a Lie algebra under the Lie bracket of vector fields. This Lie algebra is denoted by
and is isomorphic to the tangent space
at the identity element
. It is called the Lie algebra of
.
Next, we introduce the basic concepts of homology.
Definition 20. [10] A chain complex
of
-modules is a family
of
-modules together with
-modules map
such that the sequence
satisfies
for all
.
Definition 21. [10] Let
and
be chain complexes. A chain map
is a family of morphisms
such that diagram
commutes, i.e.,
for all
.
Definition 22. [10] Let
be a chain complex. Its
-th homology is defined as the quotient module
Definition 23. [10] A chain map
is called a quasi-isomorphism if for every integer
the induced map
are an isomorphism.
Definition 24. [11] Let
be a feld,
a Lie algebra over
, and
a
-module. Define
The space
can be identified with the space of alternating
-linear maps
. For
, define
by
for all
.
One can verify that
, so we obtain a cochain complex
The Lie algebra cohomology of
with coefficients in
is
3. Isomorphisms between de Rham Cohomology and Lie Algebra Cohomology for H1/H2
Let
be a compact connected Lie group with Lie algebra
,
a normal subgroup of
with Lie algebra
, and
a normal subgroup of
such that
with Lie algebra
.
acts by multiplication on the quotient
, and
acts on
, the Lie algebra of
, by the adjoint action. The section establishes an isomorphism between the de Rham cohomology of the quotient space
and the cohomology of the Lie algebra
. This is achieved by constructing chain complex isomorphisms via evaluation at the identity
. This construction links
-invariant and
-invariant differential forms to
-invariant Lie algebra cochains.
Proposition 3. [11] Suppose
acts on a manifold
via an action
. Then the inclusion
↪
is a quasi-isomorphism.
Let
be a vector space and
a representation of
, with derivative
. Recall that for all
,
where
is the exponential map, defined by
. Here
is the maximal integral curve of the left-invariant vector field defined by
, satisfying
. Then, by the chain rule,
Definition 25. [12] A vector
is called
-invariant if
for all
. The subspace of all
-invariant elements is denoted by
. A vector
is called
-invariant if
for all
. The subspace of all
-invariant elements is denoted by
.
We shall now prove that these two subspaces are equal.
Proposition 4.
.
Proof. We establish the equality by proving two inclusions.
1)
.
Let
. Then
for all
. For any
,
so
.
2)
.
Let
. Then
for all
. Define the evaluation map
by
. Then
Since
is connected,
is constant. As
, where
is the identity of
. We obtain
. Thus,
. Combing (1) and (2), we conclude that
.
We now construct an isomorphism relating the invariant differential forms to the Lie algebra chain complex, thereby linking de Rham cohomology with Lie algebra cohomology.
Proposition 5. The evaluation map at the identity
,
,
, defines an isomorphism of chain complexes.
Proof. First, we verify that
is well-defined. Identifying
with the tangent space
, we have
Hence
is well-defined.
We consider the sequence
For any
and
, we have
which shows that
. Let
be left-invariant vector fields on
, then
We obtain
. Thus,
is a chain complex.
Next, we consider the sequence
For
, the differential
is defined by
where
. Then


We obtain
. Thus,
is a chain complex.
Consider the following diagram:
Next, we show that
is a chain map, i.e.,
. Let
and
. Let
be the left-invariant vector field on
with
. Since
and all the
are left-invariant, we have
is left-invariant and therefore is constant.
Since
acts trivially on
, we have
On the other hand,
This implies that
, so
is a chain map.
Next, we prove that
is an isomorphism. Let
,
and
. We have
Hence
. It follows that
is injective.
Let
, there exists
such that
For any
,
Thus,
. Additionally, since
it follows that
. Thus,
is surjective. We conclude that
is an isomorphism.
Next, we construct a representation of the Lie group
with Lie algebra
on the cochain complex
, and show that the subspace of
-invariant cochains coincides with the subspace of
-invariant cochains.
Proposition 6.
.
Proof. First, we construct the action
.
For
and
, recall that
acts on
via the adjoint action
This action extends naturally to the exterior power
, which we also denote by
, satisfying
Dualising gives an action
of
on
,
,
Next we verify that
is a homomorphism. For
and
,
it follows that
. Thus,
is a representation of
.
Now we construct the corresponding Lie algebra action
. The adjoint action of
on
is
which we can extend to an action of
on
by
Again this dualises to an action on
,
satisfying
Next we show that
is a Lie algebra homomorphism, i.e.,
for any
. Recall that
,
Similarly,
Hence
it follows that
. Thus,
is a representation of
.
Next we prove that
for every
. Since
it follows that
. According to Proposition 4, we have
.
Finally, we prove that for every
,
. Let
and
, Because
is
-invariant,
So
It follows that
. We finally obtain
.
We now consider the action of
on the quotient space
and establish an isomorphism of chain complexes between the
-invariant differential forms and the
-invariant space of Lie algebra chain complex.
Proposition 7. Evaluation at
,
,
defines an isomorphism of chain complexes.
Proof. Let
, we show that
, that is,
is
-invariant. For any
and
, the invariance of
gives
. Hence
Therefore
It follows that
, which shows that
is
-invariant. Thus,
is well-defined.
Consider the following diagram:
Let
and
. Since
is
-invariant, we have
so
.
Next we show that
is a chain map, i.e.,
. Let
and
. Since
and all the
are left-invariant, the function
is left-invariant and therefore is constant. Moreover,
acts trivially on
. Consequently,
On the other hand,
This implies that
. Thus,
is chain map.
Next we prove that
is an isomorphism. Let
,
and
. Since a
-invariant differential form is in particular left-invariant, it follows that
This gives
. Thus,
is injective.
Let
, there exists
such that
For any
and
,
Thus,
. Additionally, since
it follows that
. Thus,
is surjective. We conclude that
is an isomorphism.
The isomorphisms of chain complexes established in Propositions 5 and 7, together with the quasi-isomorphism in Proposition 3 and the equality in Proposition 6, induce isomorphisms in cohomology.
Theorem 1. Let
be a compact connected Lie group with Lie algebra
. Let
and
be normal subgroup of
such that
, with corresponding Lie algebra
and
, respectively. The group
acts on the quotient
by left multiplication, and its Lie algebra
acts on the quotient Lie algebra
via the adjoint action. Then
where
acts trivially on
.
Proof. According to Proposition 3, we have
. Moreover, Proposition 5 also gives an isomorphism of complex
. Consequently,
We obtain
.
Now we prove that
of the chain complex
For any
and
. Because
acts trivially on
and
is
-invariant, we have
It follows that
. Thus,
.
Combining all isomorphisms we finally obtain
Our work provides a concrete and effective algebraic framework for computing the de Rham cohomology of the homogeneous space
. It translates a topological problem into a purely algebraic one concerning the invariant multilinear forms on the Lie algebra
, which is often more tractable.