The numbers game and Dynkin diagram classification results

Abstract

The numbers game is a one-player game played on a finite simple graph with certain "amplitudes" assigned to its edges and with an initial assignment of real numbers to its nodes. The moves of the game successively transform the numbers at the nodes using the amplitudes in a certain way. Combinatorial reasoning is used to show that those connected graphs with negative integer amplitudes for which the numbers game meets a certain finiteness requirement are precisely the Dynkin diagrams associated with the finite-dimensional complex simple Lie algebras. This strengthens a result originally due to the second author. A more general result is obtained when certain real number amplitudes are allowed. The resulting graphs are in families, each family corresponding to a finite irreducible Coxeter group. These results are used to demonstrate that the only generalized Cartan matrices for which there exist finite edge-colored ranked posets enjoying a certain structure property are the Cartan matrices for the finite-dimensional complex semisimple Lie algebras. In this setting, classifications of the finite-dimensional Kac--Moody algebras and of the finite Coxeter and Weyl groups are re-derived.