Line group theory of commensurate and incommensurate modulations

It is shown that the line group formalism proposed is suitable to describe both commensurate and incommensurate modulations. Symmetry groups of modulated crystal lattices can completely be characterized by symmetry transformations existing in real space, without any application of the formalism based on reciprocal space. As typical examples of the method elaborated, the fundamental invariance and symmetry properties of spin density functions and the soliton lattice are determined