Algebraic aspects of crystallography

Abstract

Taking into account the fact that space groups are groups of transformations of Euclideann-dimensional space, non-equivalent systems of non-primitive translations are defined. They can be brought into one-to-one correspondence with the elements of the groupH ¹ (K, R ⁿ/Zⁿ) or with those of the groupH ¹ (K, Z ⁿ/kZⁿ)/H ¹ (K, Z ⁿ). (K is a point group of orderk.) The consistency of these findings with the results of Part I is given by the isomorphisms

$$H^2 (K,Z^n ) \cong H^1 (K,R^n /Z^n ) \cong H^1 (K,Z^n /kZ^n )/H^1 (K,Z^n ).$$

Theorems are proved giving the conditions for cohomology groupsH ^q (K, A) to be zero. These conditions are fulfilled in particular ifA=R ⁿ andK is a subgroup ofGL (n, R) that either is compact (thenq>0) or has a finite normal subgroup leaving no element ofR ⁿ invariant (thenq≧0). This implies that the affine, the Euclidean and the inhomogeneous Lorentz groups are the only extensions ofR ⁿ by the corresponding homogeneous groups. By way of illustration, the theory of this paper is applied to two 2-dimensional space groups.