1. Introduction
After Sir Rowan Hamilton introduced quaternions, his friend Graves came up with a new algebraic system in 1843. He called them octonions [
1]. Graves shared his discovery with Hamilton in a letter written in December 1843. Around the same time, Cayley independently discovered the same structure. Later, this structure became known as the Cayley numbers or Cayley algebra, and Cayley published a detailed paper about it [
2]. Hamilton later admitted that Graves had both discovered and named the system before Cayley.
Today, the terms “generalized octonions” and “Cayley numbers” are often used to mean the same thing. In physics, octonions have mostly been used in theoretical ideas. For example, in the 1970s, some researchers tried to model quarks using octonionic Hilbert spaces. It is also known that octonions are closely related to the idea that only four normed division algebras exist. This fact connects them to the possible dimensions of spacetime where supersymmetric quantum field theories can exist. Some researchers have even tried to explain the Standard Model of particle physics using octonions. In addition to physics, octonions have appeared in many other fields. These include black hole entropy, quantum information theory, string theory, and even image processing [
3,
4,
5].
The set of generalized octonions includes several types of number systems as special cases. By changing the parameters and, different types of octonions can be defined—as long as not all of these parameters are zero.
If
yields the
real octonions [
6];
If
corresponds to the
split octonions [
7];
If
defines the
semi octonions [
8];
If
gives the
split semi octonions [
9];
If
produces the
quasi octonions [
10];
If
leads to the
split quasi octonions [
11];
If
results in the
para octonions [
12].
Numerous studies in the literature have explored these various types of octonions, including works such as [
13,
14,
15,
16,
17,
18,
19,
20]. Generalized octonions are also termed three-parameter generalized octonions (3PGO). In [
21] a classification is made based on the inner product and vector components, and the polar forms of light-like generalized octonions are derived. Furthermore, matrix representations of generalized octonions are introduced, and several properties of these representations are established. In addition, the powers and roots of the matrix representations are presented.
The frame fields and curvatures of curves in n-dimensional Euclidean and Minkowski spaces are calculated using the Frenet–Serret frame and its associated formulas [
22]. Bharathi and Nagaraj [
23] utilized spatial quaternions and quaternions to study the differential geometry of curves in 4-dimensional Euclidean space. Then, Çöken and Tuna [
24] obtained the characterizations of non-null semi-quaternionic curves in 3- and 4-dimensional Minkowski spaces. Dağdeviren and Yüce [
25] performed analogous calculations for dual quaternionic curves in 3- and 4-dimensional Galilean spaces. In addition, Akbıyık [
26] obtained the characterizations of non-null hybrid curves. The characterizations of null hybrid curves were presented by Alo [
27]. The frame fields obtained in these studies coincide with the Frenet–Serret frames due to the algebraic and geometric structure of 3- and 4-dimensional spaces. In their work, Bektaş and Yüce [
28] investigated the characterizations of spatial octonionic and octonionic curves. However, a significant algebraic difference between quaternions and octonions is that while quaternions form an associative algebra, octonions do not. Moreover, whereas two vectors in the spatial quaternion space possess only one orthogonal vector, in the spatial octonion space, two vectors may have multiple orthogonal vectors. As a result, certain differences emerge in the computation of the frame fields of octonionic curves.
The geometric properties of spatial (pure) octonionic curves in Euclidean spaces were investigated by Ohashi [
29,
30,
31,
32]. In these studies, a novel moving frame, called the
-frame, was introduced for spatial octonionic curves. The corresponding derivative formulas were derived, and their connection to the classical Frenet frame was established. Non-null split octonionic curves were studied by Alo and Akbıyık in [
33], where they constructed a
-frame along non-null spatial split octonionic curves. They derived the corresponding derivative formulas and established the relation between the elements of the
-frame and those of the classical Frenet–Serret frame. Since the computation of Serret–Frenet formulas in 7- and 8-dimensional spaces involves higher-order derivatives, it can lead to memory-related problems in software environments such as MATLAB. The
-frame offers lower-order derivative formulations as an alternative to the higher-order classical Frenet–Serret formulas.
This paper is structured as follows. In
Section 2, we present the inner product
and the vector product ▴ in the Euclidean space
. Based on these structures, we recall the generalized octonionic product× and the associated inner product
in the space of generalized octonions, denoted by
. We also present several fundamental properties of these operations. In
Section 3, we define spatial generalized octonionic curves and construct a moving frame, referred to as the
-frame, for non-null spatial generalized octonionic curves. Furthermore, we derive the differential equations associated with this frame. In addition to these, we give a relation between the
-frame and the standard orthonormal basis of spatial generalized octonions. In
Section 4, we discuss the
-invariants and establish the correspondence between the elements of the
-frame and those of the classical Frenet–Serret frame. Finally, in
Section 5, we provide an explicit example of a unit spatial generalized octonionic curve. We compute its
-frame and associated
-invariants numerically using MATLAB 2023b.
Appendix A includes the MATLAB 2023b codes utilized for performing the computations and illustrative example discussed in the main text.
This work makes two main contributions. First, it extends the concept of the -frame to the setting of spatial generalized octonionic curves. Second, it establishes explicit relations between the new invariants and the classical Frenet–Serret frame, offering computational advantages through lower-order derivative formulations.
2. Preliminaries
In this section, we recall some fundamental properties of generalized octonions, following the exposition in [
21]. Let
and
be two arbitrary 7-tuples in
, written as follows:
A real-valued function
is defined as follows:
where
are real numbers not simultaneously zero. This function defines a non-degenerate inner product on
. If
, then
is positive definite. Let
be a standard basis for
. The vector product is defined according to
Table 1.
The vector product of
can be expressed as follows:
Equivalently, as follows:
The vector product defined with
Table 1 satisfies the following fundamental properties:
- i.
,
- ii.
,
- iii.
,
- iv.
,
- v.
Let
denote the space of generalized octonions, equipped with the basis
Then, every
can be expressed uniquely in the following form:
is the scalar part and
the vector part of
R. The operations of addition and scalar multiplication in
are defined as follows:
and
The product of two generalized octonions is given in
Table 2.
Using this table, the generalized octonionic product of
and
is defined as follows:
The product of two generalized octonions
R and
S can be expressed in the following form:
where
represents the vector product and
denotes the inner product in
. Although the multiplication of generalized octonions is neither commutative nor associative, it satisfies the property of alternativity, i.e., the following identities hold
For every generalized octonion
R, the conjugate of
R, denoted by
is defined as follows:
The conjugate operator satisfies the following properties:
- i.
,
- ii.
,
- iii.
.
The
-valued symmetric bilinear form
is defined as follows:
or
The scalar product defined on
possesses the following properties for all
:
- i.
,
- ii.
- iii.
A generalized octonion R is classified as space-like, time-like, or null depending on the sign of
; that is, if
,
R is space-like; if
,
R is time-like; and if
,
R is null. We define
as the sign of
R, where
for space-like
R, and
for time-like
R. The norm of R is defined as follows:
The norm satisfies the following properties:
- i.
- ii.
- iii.
Any generalized octonion can be written as
, where
is the scalar part, and
is the vector part. The set is as follows:
is referred to as the space of spatial generalized octonions, and its elements are called spatial generalized octonions. For any
, the product
can be expressed as follows:
In particular, if
R and
S are orthogonal spatial generalized octonions, then the scalar product vanishes, and the expression simplifies to the following:
The inverse of the generalized octonion
, provided that
, is defined as follows:
and it satisfies the following properties:
- i.
- ii.
- iii.
and .
3. G2-Frame Fields Along Spatial Generalized Octonionic Curves
In this section we construct the -frame and the derivative formulas associated with this frame. We present a relation between the frame and the standard orthonormal basis of spatial generalized octonions. Let and . A smooth map , given in the form is called a spatial generalized octonionic curve.
Definition 1. Let be a spatial generalized octonionic curve. If for every ,where , then the curve is said to be a unit-speed spatial generalized octonionic curve. Furthermore, the causal character of the curve is determined by the value of as follows: If , the curve is called space-like,
If the curve is called time-like
If the curve is called null.
The causal character of a curve is determined by its classification as space-like, time-like, or null.
Throughout this study, we consider only frames consisting entirely of non-null vectors.
Theorem 1. Let be a smooth, unit-speed, non-null spatial generalized octonionic curve defined by for where the tangent vector is given by . Then the following properties hold:
- (i)
The derivative is orthogonal to , i.e., ,
- (ii)
The product belongs to the space of spatial generalized octonion .
Proof. Let
be a generalized non-null unit-speed octonionic curve. Its tangent vector is given by
and the conjugate of
t is
. It is straightforward to verify that
. Assuming the generalized inner product satisfies
, the following is written:
Since
using Equation (
1) we find
, which confirms the orthogonality and thus establishes the claim in part
i.
Applying Equation (
1) along with the properties of conjugation in
, we obtain the following:
Therefore,
is a spatial generalized octonion. This completes the proof of part
ii. □
Let
t be a spatial generalized octonion. Define the unit spatial generalized octonion
and the non-negative scalar function
through the following relation:
where
denotes the first curvature. Using property (
i) of Theorem 1, we compute the following:
which shows that
is orthogonal to
t with respect to bilinear form
h. Differentiating the orthogonality equation
with respect to the parameter s, we obtain the following equation:
From Equation (
2), the following is written:
Substituting this expression into Equation (
4), we obtain the following:
Next, we define the second vector of the orthonormal frame by the following:
By property (
) of Theorem 1, we conclude that
is a spatial generalized octonion, i.e.,
. Moreover, using the properties of the bilinear form
h, we compute
and
, which implies that the vectors
and
are mutually orthogonal spatial generalized octonions. Furthermore, the following identities hold:
Next, the unit spatial generalized octonion
, which is orthogonal to
t,
, and
, is defined by the following expression:
where
and
. This construction ensures that
is orthogonal to the previously defined vectors. We then define the following elements of the frame as follows:
Using the properties of vector product in the algebra of spatial generalized octonions, the following identities can be established:
where
and
for
, and
for
. Moreover, the following relations hold:
Thus, we obtain a complete orthonormal set
of spatial generalized octonions, for which a multiplication
Table 3 can be constructed based on the identities above.
In addition, if we define a new set of basis elements, written as follows:
where
then
forms a standard orthonormal basis for the algebra of generalized octonions with respect to the associated quadratic form. The multiplication rules for this orthonormal basis are presented in
Table 4.
Furthermore, the multiplication rules for the standard orthonormal basis of spatial generalized octonions are presented in
Table 5.
In particular, if we choose the following parameters:
then, the multiplication
Table 3, corresponding to the orthonormal basis
, matches that of
Table 5, which corresponds to the basis
Moreover, if we consider the rescaled
-frame, written as follows:
then the corresponding multiplication rules can be presented into
Table 6.
Finally, there exists a
-valued function
, where
is the authomorphism group of generalized octonions, written as follows:
such that
. The action of
induces a transition from the standard orthonormal basis to a moving frame, which is why it is commonly referred to as the
-frame.
Theorem 2. Let be a spatial generalized octonionic curve with curvature functions . The associated frame field along the curve β satisfies the system of differential equations given by the following:orwhereare curvature functions and the following: Proof. From Equation (
6), we find the following:
Substituting Equation (
5) and
we find the following:
Now, for
we write the following:
From, the following:
we find the following:
We define the following:
then by using the following:
we find the following:
From the following:
defining
, we obtain the following:
From the following:
defining
we obtain the following:
From the following:
we obtain the following:
□
Remark 1. Let β be a unit-speed spatial generalized octonionic curve, and let the following:denote its Frenet–Serret frame, where and the following:with . For the frame vectors and curvatures are defined by the following:andThen, the Frenet–Serret formulas in takes the following form:or in matrix form, written as follows: Equation (29) is referred to as the Frenet–Serret formulas for a unit-speed spatial generalized octonionic curve. It is important to note that and . 4. G2-Congruence and Relation Between G2 and Frenet–Serret Frames
In this section, we investigate the -congruence of curves. We present a relation between -frame vectors and Frenet–Serret frame vectors. Also, we calculate the -curvatures with respect to the Frenet–Serret curvatures.
Definition 2. Let β and be two unit-speed spatial generalized octonionic curves sharing the same causal character. These curves are said to be -congruent if there exists an isometrywhere denotes translation by the following:and , together with some parameter shift , such that we obtain the following:holds for all . Equivalently, this relation can be expressed as follows:whereand is the coordinate representation of β. Theorem 3. Let β be a unit-speed curve in the spatial generalized octonionic space , and let be a curve -congruent to β. Then the functions introduced in Theorem 2, associated with the curve β, remain invariant under the natural action of .
Proof. Let
and
denote the
-frame fields associated with the curves
and
, respectively. Let
, where
is a translation and
such that the following is written:
for all
s in the domain of the curves, be an isometry. Then, the corresponding frame fields are related by the following:
Since
g preserve the inner product
h, the following is calcualted:
By analogous computations, one obtains the invariance of the remaining invariants:
□
Two curves are called parallel when their congruence is established exclusively through translation, with no rotational component involved. Consequently, the two curves differ by a constant vector and their coordinate functions coincide up to this translation.
Lemma 1. Let be two spatial generalized octonionic curves. Then β and are said to be parallel if their tangent vectors and are linearly dependent for all . Moreover, if at some point , then for all ; that is, the two curves coincide.
Proof. The result follows directly from the definitions of parallel curves and the velocity vector. □
Theorem 4. Let be two unit-speed spatial generalized octonionic curves parametrized by the same arc-length. If their -invariants coincide, i.e., the following:for all , then β and are -congruent. Proof. Let
and
denote the
-frame fields along the unit-speed spatial generalized octonionic curves
and
. Define the
-valued functions
and
by the following:
and
Then there exists a
- valued function
such that we obtain the following:
for all
. Since the
-invariants of the two curves coincide, i.e.,
for
, and
for
, the following is calculated from Theorem 2:
Hence,
, implying that
is constant. Therefore,
for some
and translation vector
, which shows that
and
are
congruent. □
Theorem 5. The correspondence between the frame and the Frenet–Serret frame is established through the following relations: Proof. It is evident that the following are calculated:
From (
6), we find the following:
Thus, by proceeding with analogous computations, the desired result follows directly, completing the proof.
□
Theorem 6. The -invariants associated with the unit-speed curve β in are determined by the following expressions: and can be calculated using (14). Proof. Applying Theorem 2 and the equations in Theorem 5 we obtain the following:
and
Differentiating
we find the following:
and using Equation (
31) we obtain the following:
Similarly, we obtain the following:
and the following:
□