The Principal SO(1,2) Subalgebra of a Hyperbolic Kac Moody Algebra

The analog of the principal SO(3) subalgebra of a finite dimensional simple Lie algebra can be defined for any hyperbolic Kac Moody algebra g(A) associated with a symmetrizable Cartan matrix A, and coincides with the non-compact group SO(1,2). We exhibit the decomposition of g(A) into representations of SO(1,2); with the exception of the adjoint SO(1,2) algebra itself, all of these representations are unitary. We compute the Casimir eigenvalues; the associated ``exponents'' are complex and non-integer.