Octonionic geometry and conformal transformations

Abstract

We describe space-time using split octonions over the reals and use their group of automorphisms, the non-compact form of Cartan's exceptional Lie group G2, as the main geometrical group of the model. Connections of the G2-rotations of octonionic 8D space with the conformal transformations in 4D Minkowski space-time are studied. It is shown that the dimensional constant needed in these analysis naturally gives the observed value of the cosmological constant.