Quaternionic Representation of Snub 24-Cell and its Dual Polytope Derived From E_8 Root System

TL;DR

This paper uses quaternionic representations to analyze the vertices, symmetry groups, and duals of the snub 24-cell and related 4D polytopes, revealing their structure through group decompositions derived from the E8 root system.

Contribution

It introduces a quaternionic framework for representing and decomposing the snub 24-cell and its dual, based on the E8 root system and subgroup analysis of symmetry groups.

Findings

Quaternionic representation of vertices and symmetry groups.

Explicit construction of the dual polytope of the snub 24-cell.

Decomposition of 4D polytopes under specific symmetry groups.

Abstract

Vertices of the 4-dimensional semi-regular polytope, \textit{snub 24-cell} and its symmetry group $W(D_{4}):C_{3} $ of order 576 are represented in terms of quaternions with unit norm. It follows from the icosian representation of \textbf{$E_{8} $} root system. The quaternionic root system of $H_{4} $ splits as the vertices of 24-cell and the \textit{snub 24-cell} under the symmetry group of the \textit{snub 24-cell} which is one of the maximal subgroups of the group \textbf{$W(H_{4})$} as well as $W(F_{4})$. It is noted that the group is isomorphic to the\textbf{}semi-direct product of the Weyl group of $D_{4}$ with the cyclic group of order 3 denoted by $W(D_{4}):C_{3} $, the Coxeter notation for which is $[3,4,3^{+}]$. We analyze the vertex structure of the \textit{snub 24-cell} and decompose the orbits of \textbf{$W(H_{4})$} under the orbits of $W(D_{4}):C_{3} $. The cell structure of the snub 24-cell has been explicitly analyzed with quaternions by using the subgroups of the group $W(D_{4}):C_{3} $. In particular, it has been shown that the dual polytopes 600-cell with 120 vertices and 120-cell with 600 vertices decompose as 120=24+96 and 600=24+96+192+288 respectively under the group $W(D_{4}):C_{3} $. The dual polytope of the \textit{snub 24-cell} is explicitly constructed. Decompositions of the Archimedean $W(H_{4})$ polytopes under the symmetry of the group $W(D_{4}):C_{3} $ are given in the appendix.