Heisenberg group Heisenberg group In mathematics, the Heisenberg group formula_1, named after Werner Heisenberg, is the group of 3×3 upper triangular matrices of the form under the operation of matrix multiplication. Elements "a, b" and "c" can be taken from any commutative ring with identity, often taken to be the ring of real numbers (resulting in the "continuous Heisenberg group") or the ring of integers (resulting in the "discrete Heisenberg group"). The continuous Heisenberg group arises in the description of one-dimensional quantum mechanical systems, especially in the context of the Stone–von Neumann theorem. More generally, one can consider Heisenberg groups associated to
Heisenberg group a group, as is shown by the multiplication: and The Heisenberg group is a simply-connected Lie group whose Lie algebra consists of matrices where By letting e, ..., e be the canonical basis of R, and setting the associated Lie algebra can be characterized by the canonical commutation relations, where "p", ..., "p", "q", ..., "q", "z" are the algebra generators. In particular, "z" is a "central" element of the Heisenberg Lie algebra. Note that the Lie algebra of the Heisenberg group is nilpotent. The exponential map is given by the following expression The exponential map of a nilpotent Lie