Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2002 
From: "M.Alvarez" <m.alvarez [snail] qmul.ac.uk>
To: Predrag Cvitanovic <predrag [snail] gatech.edu>
Subject: Re: lecture notes/ color basis (blast from the past)


Dear Professor Cvitanovic

I am no longer up to date in the problem of determining the 
dimension of a color basis for an arbitrary finite-dimensional Lie 
algebra. 

My understanding is that there has been no significant progress since 
1996. The final word on this matter came from Dror Bar-Natan, who wrote up 
a computer code that simply calculated all chord diagrams at a given order 
and found a minimal set that spanned all the other diagrams. He confirmed 
that there are 19 diagrams at order 12, and then went on to higher orders.

Perhaps you would find it useful to visit his web page, where he 
used to post updates of his results.
-- 
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Dr. Marcos Alvarez
Physics Department, Queen Mary, University of London,
Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK
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