Cromlech, menhirs and celestial sphere: an unusual representation of the Lorentz group

Abstract

We present a novel representation of the Lorentz group, the geometric version of which uses "reversions" of a sphere while the algebraic version uses pseudounitary 2x2 matrices over complex numbers and quaternions, and Clifford algebras in general. A remarkably simple formula for relativistic composition of velocities and an accompanying geometric construction follows. The method is derived from the diffeomorphisms of the celestial sphere induced by Lorentz boost.