We obtain a series of new results on the problem of irreducibility of commuting varieties associated with symmetric pairs or, in other words, $Z_2$-graded simple Lie algebras. In particular, we present many examples of reducible commuting varieties and show that the number of irreducible components can be arbitrarily large.
We prove a formula, originally due to Feit and Fine, for the class of the commuting variety in the Grothendieck group of varieties. Our method, which uses a power structure on the Grothendieck group of stacks, allows us to prove several refinements and generalizations of the Feit-Fine formula. Our main application is to motivic Donaldson-Thomas theory.
The commuting variety of matrices over a given field is a well-studied object in linear algebra and algebraic geometry. As a set, it consists of all pairs of square matrices with entries in that field that commute with one another. In this paper we generalise the commuting variety by using the commuting distance of matrices. We show that over an algebraically closed field, each of our sets does indeed form a variety. We compute the dimension of the distance-$2$ commuting variety and characterize its irreducible components. We also work over other fields, showing that the distance-$2$ commuting…
We study certain "σ-commuting varieties" associated with a pair of commuting involutions of a semisimple Lie algebra $\g$. The usual commuting variety of $\g$ and commuting varieties related to one involution are particular cases of our construction. We develop a general theory of σ-commuting varieties and point out some cases, when they have especially good properties. We show that, for a special choice of commuting involutions, the σ-commuting variety is isomorphic to the commuting variety of a simple Jordan algebra. As a by-product of our theory, we show that if $J$ is the Jordan algebra of…
It is known that the variety of pairs of n x n commuting upper triangular matrices isn't a complete intersection for infinitely many values of n; we show that there exists m such that this happens if and only if n > m. We also show that m < 18 and that it could be found by determining the dimension of the variety of pairs of commuting strictly upper triangular matrices. Then we define a natural map from the variety of pairs of commuting n x n matrices onto a subvariety defined by linear equations of the grassmannian of subspaces of codimension 2 of a vector space of dimension n x n.
Let G be a connected real reductive algebraic group, and let K be a maximal compact subgroup of G. We prove that the conjugation orbit space Hom(Z^{2d},K)/K is a strong deformation retract of the space Hom(Z^{2d},G)/G of equivalence classes of representations of Z^{2d} into G. This is proved by showing that the homotopy type of the moduli space of principal G-Higgs bundles of vanishing rational characteristic classes on a complex abelian variety of dimension d depends only on K.
The generalized commuting and isospectral commuting varieties of a reductive Lie algebra have been introduced in a preceding article. In this note, it is proved that their normalizations are Gorenstein with rational singularities. Moreover, their canonical modules are free of rank 1. In particular, the usual commuting variety is Gorenstein with rational singularities and its canonical module is free of rank 1.
In this paper we show that an affine space is determined by the abstract group structure of its group of regular automorphisms in the category of connected affine varieties. To prove this we study commutative subgroups of the group of automorphisms of affine varieties.
We indicate smooth real commuting matrix differential operators whose eigenvalues and eigenfunctions are parametrized by two-dimensional principally polarized abelian varieties.
Here we prove that a commuting variety associated with a symmetric pair (g, g_0) is irreducible for (so_{n+m}, so_n + so_m) and reducible for (gl_{n+m}, {gl}_n + gl_m) with n>m, (so_{2n}, gl_n) with odd n, (E_6, {so}_{10} + k).
We study the anti-commuting variety which consists of pairs of anti-commuting $n\times n$ matrices. We provide an explicit description of its irreducible components and their dimensions. The GIT quotient of the anti-commuting variety with respect to the conjugation action of $GL_n$ is shown to be of pure dimension $n$. We also show the semi-nilpotent anti-commuting variety (in which one matrix is required to be nilpotent) is of pure dimension $n^2$ and describe its irreducible components.
We consider the conjugation-action of an arbitrary upper-block parabolic subgroup of the general linear group on the variety of nilpotent matrices in its Lie algebra. Lie-theoretically, it is natural to wonder about the number of orbits of this action. We translate the setup to a representation-theoretic one and obtain a finiteness criterion which classifies all actions with only a finite number of orbits over an arbitrary infinite field. These results are applied to commuting varieties and nested punctual Hilbert schemes.
Let $N(d,n)$ be the variety of all $d$-tuples of commuting nilpotent $n\times n$ matrices. It is well-known that $N(d,n)$ is irreducible if $d=2$, if $n\le 3$ or if $d=3$ and $n=4$. On the other hand $N(3,n)$ is known to be reducible for $n\ge 13$. We study in this paper the reducibility of $N(d,n)$ for various values of $d$ and $n$. In particular, we prove that $N(d,n)$ is reducible for all $d,n\ge 4$. In the case $d=3$, we show that it is irreducible for $n\le 6$.
It is known that the variety parametrizing pairs of commuting nilpotent matrices is irreducible and that this provides a proof of the irreducibility of the punctual Hilbert scheme in the plane. We extend this link to the nilpotent commuting variety of parabolic subalgebras of $M\_n(\K)$ and to the punctual nested Hilbert scheme. By this method, we obtain a lower bound on the dimension of these moduli spaces. We characterize the numerical conditions under which they are irreducible. In some reducible cases, we describe the irreducible components and their dimension.
The nilpotent cone of a reductive Lie algebra has a desingularization given by thecotangent bundle of the flag variety. Analogously, the nullcone of a cartesianpower of the algebra has a desingularization given by a vector bundle over theflag variety. As for the nullcone, the subvariety of elements whose componentsare in a same Borel subalgebra, has a desingularization given by a vector bundle overthe flag variety. In this note, some properties of these varieties are given. Forthe study of the commuting variety, the analogous variety to the flag variety isthe closure in the Grassmannian of the…
Let g be a semisimple Lie algebra of finite dimension. The nullcone N of g is the set of (x,y) in g x g such that x and y are nilpotents and are in the same Borel sualgebra. The main result of this paper is that N is a closed and irreducible subvariety of g x g, its normalisation has rational singularities and its normalization morphism is bijective.
We prove that the singular locus of the commuting variety of a noncommutative reductive Lie algebra is contained in the irregular locus and we compute the codimension of the latter. We prove that one of the irreducible components of the irregular locus has codimension 4. This yields the lower bound of the codimension of the singular locus, in particular, implies that it is at least 2. We also prove that the commuting variety is rational.
Given an nxn nilpotent matrix over an algebraically closed field K, we prove some properties of the set of all the nxn nilpotent matrices over K which commute with it. Then we give a proof of the irreducibility of the variety of all the pairs (A,B) of nxn nilpotent matrices over K if either char K = 0 or char K isn't less than n/2. We get as a consequence a proof of the irreducibility of the local Hilbert scheme of n points of a smooth algebraic surface over K with the previous condition on char K.
Let $\N_n$ be the set of nilpotent $n$ by $n$ matrices over an algebraically closed field $k$. For each $r\ge 2$, let $C_r(\N_n)$ be the variety consisting of all pairwise commuting $r$-tuples of nilpotent matrices. It is well-kown that $C_2(\N_n)$ is irreducible for every $n$. We study in this note the reducibility of $C_r(\N_n)$ for various values of $n$ and $r$. In particular it will be shown that the reducibility of $C_r(\mathfrak{gl}_n)$, the variety of commuting $r$-tuples of $n$ by $n$ matrices, implies that of $C_r(\N_n)$ under certain condition. Then we prove that $C_r(\N_n)$ is reduc…
In this paper we find the explicit formulas of two dimensional commuting ($2\times 2$)-matrix differential operators which were introduced by Nakayashiki. The common eigen functions and eigen values of these operators are parametrized by the points of principally polarized Abelian varieties.
Let $G$ be a connected reductive algebraic group over an algebraically closed field $k$, and assume that the characteristic of $k$ is zero or a pretty good prime for $G$. Let $P$ be a parabolic subgroup of $G$ and let $\mathfrak p$ be the Lie algebra of $P$. We consider the commuting variety $\mathcal C(\mathfrak p) = \{(X,Y) \in \mathfrak p \times \mathfrak p \mid [X,Y] = 0\}$. Our main theorem gives a necessary and sufficient condition for irreducibility of $\mathcal C(\mathfrak p)$ in terms of the modality of the adjoint action of $P$ on the nilpotent variety of $\mathfrak p$. As a conseque…
Let I be a conjugation-invariant ideal in the complex polynomial ring with variables z_1,...,z_n and their conjugates. The ideal I has the Quillen property if every real valued, strictly positive polynomial on the real zero set of I in C^n is a sum of hermitian squares modulo I. We first relate the Quillen property to the archimedean property from real algebra. Using hereditary calculus, we then quantize and show that the Quillen property implies the subnormality of commuting tuples of Hilbert space operators satisfying the identities in I. In the finite rank case we give a complete geometric …
Consider the moment map $μ\colon T^*(\mathfrak{p} \times \mathbb{C}^n) \to \mathfrak{p}^*$ for a parabolic subalgebra $\mathfrak{p}$ of $\mathfrak{gl}_n(\mathbb{C})$. We prove that the preimage of $0$ under $μ$ is a complete intersection when $\mathfrak{p}$ has finitely many $P$-orbits, where $P\subseteq \operatorname{GL}_n(\mathbb{C})$ is a parabolic subgroup such that $\operatorname{Lie}(P) = \mathfrak{p}$, and give an explicit description of the irreducible components. This allows us to study nearby fibers of $μ$ as they are equidimensional, and one may also construct GIT quotients $μ^{-1}(…
Several algebro-geometric properties of commutative rings of partial differential operators as well as several geometric constructions are investigated. In particular, we show how to associate a geometric data by a commutative ring of partial differential operators, and we investigate the properties of these geometric data. This construction is similar to the construction of a formal module of Baker-Akhieser functions. On the other hand, there is a recent generalization of Sato's theory which belongs to the third author of this paper. We compare both approaches to the commutative rings of part…
We investigate the variety of commuting matrices. We classify its components for any number of matrices of size at most 7. We prove that starting from quadruples of size 8 matrices, this scheme has generically nonreduced components, while up to degree 7 it is generically reduced. Our approach is to recast the problem as deformations of modules and generalize an array of methods: apolarity, duality and Białynicki-Birula decompositions to this setup. We include a thorough review of our methods to make the paper self-contained and accessible to both algebraic and linear-algebraic communities. Our…
Cayley--Hamilton tuples: an interplay between algebraic varieties and joint spectra
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay(印度理工学院孟买分校);Indian Institute of Science Bangalore(印度科学学院班加罗尔分校);Indian Institute of Science Education and Research(印度科学教育与研究学院)
We observe that the degree of the commuting variety and other related varieties occur as coefficients in the leading eigenvector of an integrable loop model based on the Brauer algebra.
The aim of this paper is to describe the irregular locus of the commuting variety of a reductive symmetric Lie algebra. More precisely, we want to enlighten a remark of Popov. In [Po], the irregular locus of the commuting variety of any reductive Lie algebra is described and its codimension is computed. This provides a bound for the codimension of the singular locus of this commuting variety. [Po, Remark 1.13] suggests that the arguments and methods of [Po] are suitable for obtaining analogous results in the symmetric setting. We show that some difficulties arise in this case and we obtain som…
Symmetric varieties are normal equivariant open embeddings of symmetric homogeneous spaces and they are interesting examples of spherical varieties. The principal goal of this article is to study the rigidity under Kähler deformations of smooth projective symmetric varieties with Picard number one.
The symmetric projective varieties of rank one are all smooth and Fano by a classic result of Akhiezer. We classify the locally factorial (respectively smooth) projective symmetric $G$-varieties of rank 2 which are Fano. When $G$ is semisimple we classify also the locally factorial (respectively smooth) projective symmetric $G$-varieties of rank 2 which are only quasi-Fano. Moreover, we classify the Fano symmetric $G$-varieties of rank 3 obtainable from a wonderful variety by a sequence of blow-ups along $G$-stable varieties. Finally, we classify the Fano symmetric varieties of arbitrary rank …
Euler-symmetric projective varieties are nondegenerate projective varieties admitting many C*-actions of Euler type. They are quasi-homogeneous and uniquely determined by their fundamental forms at a general point. We show that Euler-symmetric projective varieties can be classified by symbol systems, a class of algebraic objects modeled on the systems of fundamental forms at general points of projective varieties. We study relations between the algebraic properties of symbol systems and the geometric properties of Euler-symmetric projective varieties. We describe also the relation between Eule…
We obtain an explicit presentation of the equivariant cobordism ring of a complete flag variety. An immediate corollary is a Borel presentation of the ordinary cobordism ring. Another application is an equivariant Schubert calculus in cobordism. We also describe the rational cobordism rings of wonderful symmetric varieties of minimal rank.
We classify products of symmetric powers of a Severi-Brauer variety, up-to stable birational equivalence. The description also includes Grassmannians and moduli spaces of genus 0 stable maps.
We classify the irreducible Hermitian real variations of Hodge structure admitting an infinitesimal normal function, and draw conclusions for cycle-class maps on families of abelian varieties with a given Mumford-Tate group.
This is a survey paper on moduli spaces that have a natural structure of a (possibly incomplete) locally symmetric variety. We outline the Baily-Borel compactification for such varieties and compare it with the compactifications furnished by techniques in algebraic geometry. These differ in general, but we show that a reconciliation is possible by means of a generalization of the Baily-Borel technique for a class of incomplete locally symmetric varieties. The emphasis is here on moduli spaces of varieties other than that of polarized abelian varieties.
We construct new examples of multidimensional commuting matrix differential operators and a multidimensional analog of the Kadomtsev--Petviashvili hierarchy.
We show that all subvarieties of a quotient of a bounded symmetric domain by a sufficiently small arithmetic discrete group of automorphisms are of general type. This result corresponds through the Green-Griffiths-Lang's conjecture to a well-known result of Nadel.
Let Y be the variety of (skew) symmetric nxn-matrices of rank less than or equal to r. In paper we construct a full faithful embedding between the derived category of a non-commutative resolution of Y, constructed earlier by the authors, and the derived category of the classical Springer resolution of Y.
Using classical results from Hodge theory and more contemporary ones valid for complex projective varieties with Kawamata log terminal (klt) singularities, we deduce necessary and sufficient conditions for such varieties to be uniformized by each of the four irreducible Hermitian symmetric spaces of non compact type. We also deduce necessary and sufficient conditions for uniformization by a polydisk, which generalizes a classical result of Simpson.
We associate to any complete spherical variety $X$ a certain nonnegative rational number $\wp(X)$, which we conjecture to satisfy the inequality $\wp(X) \le \operatorname{dim} X - \operatorname{rank} X$ with equality holding if and only if $X$ is isomorphic to a toric variety. We show that, for spherical varieties, our conjecture implies the generalized Mukai conjecture on the pseudo-index of smooth Fano varieties due to Bonavero, Casagrande, Debarre, and Druel. We also deduce from our conjecture a smoothness criterion for spherical varieties. It follows from the work of Pasquier that our conj…
We prove that certain Severi varieties of nodal curves of positive genus on general blow-ups of the twofold symmetric product of a general elliptic curve are non-empty and smooth of the expected dimension. This result, besides its intrinsic value, is an important preliminary step for the proof of nonemptiness of Severi varieties on general Enriques surfaces in arXiv:2109.10735.
Let $\mathbb{G}_a$ be the additive group of the field of complex numbers $\mathbb{C}$. We say that an irreducible algebraic variety $X$ of dimension $n$ admits an additive action if there is a regular action of the group $\mathbb{G}_a^n = \mathbb{G}_a \times \ldots \times \mathbb{G}_a$ ($n$ times) on $X$ with an open orbit. In 2017 Baohua Fu and Jun-Muk Hwang introduced a class of Euler-symmetric varieties. They gave a classification of Euler-symmetric varieties and proved that any Euler-symmetric variety admits an additive action. In this paper we show that in the case of projective toric var…
In this paper we study the cohomology of tensor products of symmetric powers of the cotangent bundle of complete intersection varieties in projective space. We provide an explicit description of some of those cohomology groups in terms of the equations defining the complete intersection. We give several applications. First we prove a non-vanishing result, then we give a new example illustrating the fact that the dimension of the space of holomorphic symmetric differential forms is not deformation invariant. Our main application is the construction of varieties with ample cotangent bundle, prov…
This work is a PhD thesis. First we provide some general context on wonderful varieties and moduli spaces of rational curves. Working over complex numbers we prove that the moduli space of rational curves with no marked points on the wonderful compactification of a symmetric space is not irreducible in general. Lastly we show that in the case of wonderful group compactifications the set of rational curves with no marked points and irreducible source is irreducible.
The geometry of divisors on algebraic curves has been studied extensively over the years. The foundational results of this Brill-Noether theory imply that on a general curve, the spaces parametrizing linear series (of fixed degree and dimension) are smooth, irreducible projective varieties of known dimension. For higher dimensional varieties, the story is less well understood. Our purpose in this paper is to study in detail one class of higher dimensional examples where one can hope for a quite detailed picture, namely (the spaces parametrizing) divisors on the symmetric product of a curve.
From a block-diagonal $(n+1) \times (m+1) \times (m+1)$ tensor symmetric in the last two entries one obtains two varieties: an intersection of symmetric determinantal hypersurfaces $X$ in $n$-dimensional projective space, and an intersection of quadrics $\mathfrak{C}$ in $m$-dimensional projective space. Under mild technical assumptions, we characterize the accidental singularities of $X$ in terms of $\mathfrak{C}$. We apply our methods to algebraic curves and show how to construct theta characteristics of certain canonical curves of genera 3, 4, and 5, generalizing a classical construction of…
A.Goncharov and R.Kenyon has defined a class of integrable system on a cluster varieties constructed out of a Newton polygon on the plane. In the present note we show that thiest cluster varieties coincides with the configuration spaces of collections of complete flags in an infinite dimensional space invariant with respect to two commuting operators. We use this interpretation to give explicit solution for these integrable systems in terms of theta-functions.
A generically generated vector bundle on a smooth projective variety yields a rational map to a Grassmannian, called Kodaira map. We answer a previous question, raised by the asymptotic behaviour of such maps, giving rise to a birational characterization of abelian varieties. In particular we prove that, under the conjectures of the Minimal Model Program, a smooth projective variety is birational to an abelian variety if and only if it has Kodaira dimension 0 and some symmetric power of its cotangent sheaf is generically generated by its global sections.
An algebraic subvariety Z of A_g is totally geodesic if it is the image via the natural projection map of some totally geodesic submanifold X of the Siegel space. We say that X is the symmetric space uniformizing Z. In this paper we determine which symmetric space uniformizes each of the low genus counterexamples to the Coleman-Oort conjecture obtained studying Galois covers of curves. It is known that the counterexamples obtained via Galois covers of elliptic curves admit two fibrations in totally geodesic subvarieties. The second result of the paper studies the relationship between these fib…