# Representations in sympy¶

## Representation of Multivectors¶

The sympy python module offers a simple way of representing multivectors using linear combinations of commutative expressions (expressions consisting only of commuting sympy objects) and non-commutative symbols. We start by defining $$n$$ non-commutative sympy symbols as a basis for the vector space

e_1, ..., e_n = symbols('e_1,...,e_n', commutative=False, real=True)

Several software packages for numerical geometric algebra calculations are available from Doran-Lasenby group and the Dorst group. Symbolic packages for Clifford algebra using orthogonal bases such as $${{\eb}}_{i}{{\eb}}_{j}+{{\eb}}_{j}{{\eb}}_{i} = 2\eta_{ij}$$, where $$\eta_{ij}$$ is a numeric array are available in Maple and Mathematica. The symbolic algebra module, ga, developed for python does not depend on an orthogonal basis representation, but rather is generated from a set of $$n$$ arbitrary symbolic vectors $${{\eb}}_{1},{{\eb}}_{2},\dots,{{\eb}}_{n}$$ and a symbolic metric tensor $$g_{ij} = {{\eb}}_{i}\cdot {{\eb}}_{j}$$ (the symbolic metric can be symbolic constants or symbolic function in the case of a manifold).

In order not to reinvent the wheel all scalar symbolic algebra is handled by the python module sympy and the abstract basis vectors are encoded as non-commuting sympy symbols.

The basic geometric algebra operations will be implemented in python by defining a geometric algebra class, Ga, that performs all required geometric algebra an calculus operations on sympy expressions of the form (Einstein summation convention)

$\be F +\sum_{r=1}^{n}F^{i_{1}\dots i_{r}}\eb_{i_{1}}\dots\eb_{i_{r}} \ee$

where the $$F$$’s are sympy symbolic constants or functions of the coordinates and a multivector class, Mv, that wraps Ga and overloads the python operators to provide all the needed multivector operations as shown in Table Operators where $$A$$ and $$B$$ are any two multivectors (In the case of $$+$$, $$-$$, $$*$$, $${\wedge}$$, $$|$$, $$<$$, and $$>$$ the operation is also defined if $$A$$ or $$B$$ is a sympy symbol or a sympy real number).

 $$A+B$$ sum of multivectors $$A-B$$ difference of multivectors $$A*B$$ geometric product of multivectors $$A{\wedge}B$$ outer product of multivectors $$A{\vert}B$$ inner product of multivectors $$A{<}B$$ left contraction of multivectors $$A{>}B$$ right contraction of multivectors $$A{/}B$$ division of multivectors

### Multivector operations for GA¶

Since < and > have no r-forms (in python for the < and > operators there are no __rlt__() and __rgt__() member functions to overload) we can only have mixed modes (sympy scalars and multivectors) if the first operand is a multivector.

Except for < and > all the multivector operators have r-forms so that as long as one of the operands, left or right, is a multivector the other can be a multivector or a scalar (sympy symbol or number).

### Operator Precedence¶

Note that the operator order precedence is determined by python and is not necessarily that used by geometric algebra. It is absolutely essential to use parenthesis in multivector expressions containing ^, |, <, and/or >. As an example let A and B be any two multivectors. Then A + A*B = A +(A*B), but A+A^B = (2*A)^B since in python the ^ operator has a lower precedence than the + operator. In geometric algebra the outer and inner products and the left and right contractions have a higher precedence than the geometric product and the geometric product has a higher precedence than addition and subtraction. In python the ^, |, >, and < all have a lower precedence than + and - while * has a higher precedence than + and -.

Additional care has to be used when using the operators != and == with the operators < and >. All these operators have the same precedence and are evaluated chained from left to right. To be completely safe for expressions such as A == B or A != B always user (A) == (B) and (A) != (B) if A or B contains a left, <, or right, >, contraction.

For those users who wish to define a default operator precedence the functions def_prec() and GAeval() are available in the module printer.

galgebra.printer.def_prec(gd: dict, op_ord: str = '<>|,^,*')None[source]

This is used with the GAeval() function to evaluate a string representing a multivector expression with a revised operator precedence.

Parameters
• gd – The globals() dictionary to lookup variable names in.

• op_ord – The order of operator precedence from high to low with groups of equal precedence separated by commas. The default precedence, '<>|,^,*', is that used by Hestenes ([HS84], p7, [DL03], p38). This means that the <, >, and | operations have equal precedence, followed by ^, and lastly *.

galgebra.printer.GAeval(s: str, pstr: bool = False)[source]

Evaluate a multivector expression string s.

The operator precedence and variable values within the string are controlled by def_prec(). The documentation for that function describes the default precedence.

The implementation works by adding parenthesis to the input string s according to the requested precedence, and then calling eval() on the result.

For example consider where X, Y, Z, and W are multivectors:

def_prec(globals())
V = GAeval('X|Y^Z*W')


The sympy variable V would evaluate to ((X|Y)^Z)*W.

Parameters
• s – The string to evaluate.

• pstr – If True, the values of s and s with parenthesis added to enforce operator precedence are printed.

## Vector Basis and Metric¶

The two structures that define the metric class (inherited by the geometric algebra class) are the symbolic basis vectors and the symbolic metric. The symbolic basis vectors are input as a string with the symbol name separated by spaces. For example if we are calculating the geometric algebra of a system with three vectors that we wish to denote as a0, a1, and a2 we would define the string variable:

basis = 'a0 a1 a2'


that would be input into the geometric algebra class instantiation function, Ga(). The next step would be to define the symbolic metric for the geometric algebra of the basis we have defined. The default metric is the most general and is the matrix of the following symbols

$\begin{split}$$\label{metric} g = \lbrk \begin{array}{ccc} (a0.a0) & (a0.a1) & (a0.a2) \\ (a0.a1) & (a1.a1) & (a1.a2) \\ (a0.a2) & (a1.a2) & (a2.a2) \\ \end{array} \rbrk$$\end{split}$

where each of the $$g_{ij}$$ is a symbol representing all of the dot products of the basis vectors. Note that the symbols are named so that $$g_{ij} = g_{ji}$$ since for the symbol function $$(a0.a1) \ne (a1.a0)$$.

Note that the strings shown in the above equation are only used when the values of $$g_{ij}$$ are output (printed). In the ga module (library) the $$g_{ij}$$ symbols are stored in a member of the geometric algebra instance so that if o3d is a geometric algebra then o3d.g is the metric tensor ( $$g_{ij} =$$ o3d.g[i, j]) for that algebra.

The default definition of $$g$$ can be overwritten by specifying a string that will define $$g$$. As an example consider a symbolic representation for conformal geometry. Define for a basis

basis = 'a0 a1 a2 n nbar'


and for a metric

g = '# # # 0 0, # # # 0 0, # # # 0 0, 0 0 0 0 2, 0 0 0 2 0'


then calling cf3d = Ga(basis, g=g) would initialize the metric tensor

$\begin{split}\be g = \lbrk\begin{array}{ccccc} (a0.a0) & (a0.a1) & (a0.a2) & 0 & 0\\ (a0.a1) & (a1.a1) & (a1.a2) & 0 & 0\\ (a0.a2) & (a1.a2) & (a2.a2) & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 2 \\ 0 & 0 & 0 & 2 & 0 \end{array} \rbrk \ee\end{split}$

for the cf3d (conformal 3-d) geometric algebra.

Here we have specified that n and nbar are orthogonal to all the a’s, (n.n) = (nbar.nbar) = 0, and (n.nbar) = 2. Using # in the metric definition string just tells the program to use the default symbol for that value.

When Ga is called multivector representations of the basis local to the program are instantiated. For the case of an orthogonal 3-d vector space that means the symbolic vectors named a0, a1, and a2 are created. We can instantiate the geometric algebra and obtain the basis vectors with -

o3d = Ga('a_1 a_2 a_3', g=[1, 1, 1])
a_1, a_2, a_3 = o3d.mv()


or use the Ga.build() function -

o3d, a_1, a_2, a_3 = Ga.build('a_1 a_2 a_3', g=[1, 1, 1])


Note that the python variable name for a basis vector does not have to correspond to the name give in Ga() or Ga.build(), one may wish to use a shortened python variable name to reduce programming (typing) errors, for example one could use -

o3d, a1, a2, a3 = Ga.build('a_1 a_2 a_3', g=[1, 1, 1])


or

st4d, g0, g1, g2, g3 = Ga.build('gamma_0 gamma_1 gamma_2 gamma_3',
g=[1, -1, -1, -1])


for Minkowski space time.

If the latex printer is used e1 would print as $${\boldsymbol{e_{1}}}$$ and g1 as $${\boldsymbol{\gamma_{1}}}$$.

## Representation and Reduction of Multivector Bases¶

In our symbolic geometric algebra all multivectors can be obtained from the symbolic basis vectors we have input, via the different operations available to geometric algebra. The first problem we have is representing the general multivector in terms terms of the basis vectors. To do this we form the ordered geometric products of the basis vectors and develop an internal representation of these products in terms of python classes. The ordered geometric products are all multivectors of the form $$a_{i_{1}}a_{i_{2}}\dots a_{i_{r}}$$ where $$i_{1}<i_{2}<\dots <i_{r}$$ and $$r \le n$$. We call these multivectors bases and represent them internally with non-commutative symbols so for example $$a_{1}a_{2}a_{3}$$ is represented by

Symbol('a_1*a_2*a_3', commutative=False)


In the simplest case of two basis vectors a_1 and a_2 we have a list of bases

self.bases = ((Integer(1),)
(Symbol('a_1', commutative=False, real=True),
Symbol('a_2', commutative=False, real=True)),
(Symbol('a_1*a_2', commutative=False, real=True),))


For the case of the basis blades we have

self.blades = ((Integer(1),)
(Symbol('a_1', commutative=False, real=True),
Symbol('a_2', commutative=False, real=True)),
(Symbol('a_1^a_2', commutative=False, real=True)))


The index tuples for the bases of each pseudo grade and each grade for the case of dimension 3 is

self.indexes = (((),),
((0,), (1,), (2,)),
((0, 1), (0, 2), (1, 2)),
((0, 1, 2),))


Then the non-commutative symbol representing each base is constructed from each index tuple. For example for self.indexes[1][1] the symbol is Symbol('a_1*a_3', commutative=False).

## Base Representation of Multivectors¶

In terms of the bases defined as non-commutative sympy symbols the general multivector is a linear combination (scalar sympy coefficients) of bases so that for the case of two bases the most general multivector is given by -

A = A_0+A__1*self.bases[1][0]+A__2*self.bases[1][1]+\
A__12*self.bases[2][0]


If we have another multivector B to multiply with A we can calculate the product in terms of a linear combination of bases if we have a multiplication table for the bases.

Since we can now calculate the symbolic geometric product of any two multivectors we can also calculate the blades corresponding to the product of the symbolic basis vectors using the formula

$\be A_{r}{\wedge}b = {\frac{1}{2}}\lp A_{r}b+\lp -1 \rp ^{r}bA_{r} \rp , \ee$

where $$A_{r}$$ is a multivector of grade $$r$$ and $$b$$ is a vector. For our example basis the result is shown in Table Blade expansions.

1 = 1
a0 = a0
a1 = a1
a2 = a2
a0^a1 = {-(a0.a1)}1+a0a1
a0^a2 = {-(a0.a2)}1+a0a2
a1^a2 = {-(a1.a2)}1+a1a2
a0^a1^a2 = {-(a1.a2)}a0+{(a0.a2)}a1+{-(a0.a1)}a2+a0a1a2


The important thing to notice about Table Blade expansions is that it is a triagonal (lower triangular) system of equations so that using a simple back substitution algorithm we can solve for the pseudo bases in terms of the blades giving Table Base expansions.

Base expansions
1 = 1
a0 = a0
a1 = a1
a2 = a2
a0a1 = {(a0.a1)}1+a0^a1
a0a2 = {(a0.a2)}1+a0^a2
a1a2 = {(a1.a2)}1+a1^a2
a0a1a2 = {(a1.a2)}a0+{-(a0.a2)}a1+{(a0.a1)}a2+a0^a1^a2


Using Table Base expansions and simple substitution we can convert from a base multivector representation to a blade representation. Likewise, using Table Blade expansions we can convert from blades to bases.

Using the blade representation it becomes simple to program functions that will calculate the grade projection, reverse, even, and odd multivector functions.

Note that in the multivector class Mv there is a class variable for each instantiation, self.is_blade_rep, that is set to False for a base representation and True for a blade representation. One needs to keep track of which representation is in use since various multivector operations require conversion from one representation to the other.