Some of the accidental isomorphisms of low dimensional Lie algebras have very important applications in physics. The theory of angular momentum makes use of the fact that SO(3)∼SU(2). Similarly, the isomorphism SO(4)∼SU(2)×SU(2) can be used to greatly simplify the representation theory of the Lorentz group in 4 dimensions. Another example is SU(4)∼SO(6), which I believe is useful for N=4 SYM theory, where SU(4) is the R-symmetry.
I was just wondering if there are any physical examples that make use of the last accidental isomorphism SO(5)∼Sp(2).
This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2015-02-27 11:31 (UTC), posted by SE-user asperanz