Crystallography & Symmetry
patterns derived from their groups
Concept

Kernel — where it appears

The operations a one-dimensional representation sends to plus one, forming a subgroup of index two. It is the symmetry that survives when the corresponding order parameter becomes non-zero, so each such representation names one descent.

Named by 3 essays across 2 fields — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.

p6m: freezing Γ2 leaves p31m. The same crystal three times. On the left, a pattern with the full symmetry of p6m. In the middle, the displacement each atom takes under the order parameter — the arrows are the mode, drawn in the first colour for one set of atoms and the second for the other where there are two. On the right, the atoms moved by a small multiple of those displacements. The group of the right-hand pattern is p31m, of index 2 in the parent, and it was found by the detector from the point set alone. The prediction — which operations carry the displacement field to itself — is made separately, from the mode and not from the points, and the two lists of operations are identical.

An order parameter is a representation

The quantity that measures a lost symmetry is not a number the physics chooses freely: the parent group mixes its components, so it carries a representation, and the symmetry that survives is what leaves its value alone. Every prediction here is checked by moving the atoms and asking the detector.

space-groups · Landau 4mm: which phase depends on where the order parameter points. The plane of a two-dimensional order parameter, with each sampled direction marked by the symmetry that survives when the parameter points that way. The directions along which some operation is preserved are drawn large with a spoke to the centre; the general directions, where nothing survives, are the small faint marks between them. One representation, several phases — and the symmetry does not say which of them a crystal takes. That is decided by terms in an energy, which no symmetry argument supplies: what symmetry supplies is the list a material must choose from.

Which way the order parameter points

A two-component order parameter has a direction as well as a size, and the symmetry that survives depends on where it points. One representation therefore offers several low-symmetry phases — and symmetry, having produced the list, has nothing to say about which one a crystal takes.

space-groups · Landau The seven friezes rolled into cylinders are the seven axial families. Each of the seven frieze groups drawn on a strip 3 cells long, beside the same strip rolled into a cylinder so that its ends meet. A translation by one cell becomes a rotation by a 3th of a turn about the axis, a mirror across the strip a mirror containing the axis, the centre line a mirror perpendicular to it, a half-turn in the strip a half-turn about a horizontal axis, and a glide a rotation by half a cell's angle combined with that perpendicular mirror. Each cylinder's symmetry group was built from the rolled strip and again from the family's own generators, and the two agree. At n = 3 the orders are 3, 6, 6, 6, 6, 12, 12, and the last column names the crystal class each member is, coloured by whether it is proper, contains the centre, or is neither.

Seven friezes round a cylinder

A point group with one principal axis belongs to one of seven infinite families, and there are seven frieze groups. They are the same seven. Draw a frieze on a strip, roll the strip into a cylinder, and every translation becomes a turn about the axis and every glide a rotoreflection.

restriction · Finite groups

Named alongside it

The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.

Isotropy subgroupOrder parameterSymmetry breakingTwo-dimensional representationAxial classCrystallographic restrictionDisplacement modeDomain stateEnumerationEquivarianceFrieze groupGlide reflection

All concepts