Euler angles for SU(n)

October 20th, 2005 by Walt

This paper, On the Euler angles for SU(N), gives a definition/derivation of Euler angles for SU(n). The paper claims that the construction first appeared in 2002. Does anyone know if that’s true? I thought for sure that I’d seen Euler angles defined for SU(n) (and SO(n)) sometime in the 90s.

One Response to “Euler angles for SU(n)”

  1. sigfpe Says:

    Euler angles are just the most horrible thing. As someone who works in 3D graphics I frequently have to deal with the headache of the fact that people insist on using Euler angles to parameterise the entirety of SO(3) even though it gives a a multivalued and singular representation. And now someone has figured out how to spread this evil to other Lie groups too. It’s too much to bear!

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