T-Minkowski noncommutative spacetimes I: Poincaré groups, differential calculi and braiding

Abstract

This paper introduces and investigates a class of noncommutative spacetimes that I will call ``T-Minkowski,'' whose quantum Poincaré group of isometries exhibits unique and physically motivated characteristics. Notably, the coordinates on the Lorentz subgroup remain commutative, while the deformation is confined to the translations (hence the T in the name), which act like an integrable set of vector fields on the Lorentz group. This is similar to Majid's bicrossproduct construction, although my approach allows the description of spacetimes with commutators that include a constant matrix as well as terms that are linear in the coordinates (the resulting structure is that of a centrally-extended Lie algebra). Moreover, I require that one can define a covariant braided tensor product representation of the quantum Poincaré group, describing the algebra of N-points. This also implies that a 4-dimensional bicovariant differential calculus exists on the noncommutative spacetime. The resulting models can all be described in terms of a numerical triangular R-matrix through RTT relations (as well as RXX, RXY and RXdX relations for the homogeneous spacetime, the braiding and the differential calculus). The R-matrices I find are in one-to-one correspondence with the triangular r-matrices on the Poincaré group without quadratic terms in the Lorentz generators. These have been classified, up to automorphisms, by Zakrzewski, and amount to 16 inequivalent models. This paper is the first of a series, focusing on the identification of all the quantum Poincaré groups that are allowed by my assumptions, as well as the associated quantum homogeneous spacetimes, differential calculi and braiding constructions.