In this paper we prove two formulas for the characters of representations of reductive groups. Both express the character of a representation in terms of the same geometric data attached to it. When specialized to the case of a compact Lie group, one of them reduces to Kirillov's character formula in the compact case, and the other, to an application of the Atiyah-Bott fixed point formula to the Borel-Weil realization of the representation.
We present an application of Hodge theory towards the study of irreducible unitary representations of reductive Lie groups. We describe a conjecture about such representations and discuss some progress towards its proof.
The commuting variety of a reductive Lie algebra ${\goth g}$ is the underlying variety of a well defined subscheme of $\gg g{}$. In this note, it is proved that this scheme is normal. In particular, its ideal of definition is a prime ideal.
We study the coadjoint representation of contractions of reductive Lie algebras associated with symmetric decompositions. Let $\frak g=\frak g_0\oplus \frak g_1$ be a symmetric decomposition of a reductive Lie algebra $\frak g$. Then the semi-direct product of $\frak g_0$ and the $\frak g_0$-module $\frak g_1$ is a contraction of $\frak g$. We conjecture that these contractions have many properties in common with reductive Lie algebras. In particular, it is proved that in many cases the algebra of invariants is polynomial. We also discuss the so-called "codim--2 property" for coadjoint represe…
For a reductive Lie algbera over an algbraically closed field of charasteristic zero,we consider a borel subgroup $B$ of its adjoint group, a Cartan subalgebra contained inthe Lie algebra of $B$ and the closure $X$ of its orbit under $B$ in the Grassmannian.The variety $X$ plays an important role in the study of the commuting variety. In thisnote, we prove that $X$ is Gorenstein with rational singularities.
This paper is an introduction, in a simplified setting, to Lusztig's theory of character sheaves. It develops a notion of character sheaves on reductive Lie algebras which is more general then such notion of Lusztig, and closer to Lusztig's theory of character sheaves on groups. The development is self contained and independent of the characteristic $p$ of the ground field. The results for Lie algebras are then used to give simple and uniform proofs for some of Lusztig's results on groups.
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.
We say that a finite dimensional Lie algebra is quasi-reductive if it has a linear form whose stabilizer for the coadjoint representation, modulo the center, is a reductive Lie algebra with a center consisting of semisimple elements. Parabolic subalgebras of a semisimple Lie algebra are not always quasi-reductive (except in types A or C by work of Panyushev). The classification of quasi-reductive parabolic subalgebras in the classical case has been recently achieved in unpublished work of Duflo, Khalgui and Torasso. In this paper, we investigate the quasi-reductivity of biparabolic subalgebras…
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…
We study the possibility of factoring a covariant distribution on reductive Lie algebras as finite sum of products of an invariant distribution by a covariant polynomial.
We prove an explicit formula for the invariant $μ(\Lg)$ for finite-dimensional semisimple, and reductive Lie algebras $\Lg$ over $\C$. Here $μ(\Lg)$ is the minimal dimension of a faithful linear representation of $\Lg$. The result can be used to study Dynkin's classification of maximal reductive subalgebras of semisimple Lie algebras.
The simplicity of the induced modules for reductive Lie algebras over an algebraically closed field of positive characteristic is studied, and a necessary and sufficient condition for the simplicity is given.
We give a detailed description of the torsors that correspond to multiloop algebras. These algebras are twisted forms of simple Lie algebras extended over Laurent polynomial rings. They play a crucial role in the construction of Extended Affine Lie Algebras (which are higher nullity analogues of the affine Kac-Moody Lie algebras). The torsor approach that we take draws heavily for the theory of reductive group schemes developed by M. Demazure and A. Grothendieck. It also allows us to find a bridge between multiloop algebras and the work of J. Tits on reductive groups over complete local fields…
We carry an intrinsic approach to the study of the connectedness of the moduli space $\mathcal{M}_G$ of $G$-Higgs bundles, over a compact Riemann surface, when $G$ is a complex reductive (not necessarily connected) Lie group. We prove that the number of connected components of $\mathcal{M}_G$ is indexed by the corresponding topological invariants. In particular, this gives an alternative proof of the counting by J. Li of the number of connected components of the moduli space of flat $G$-connections in the case in which $G$ is connected and semisimple.
In this paper, we give a simple formula for sectional curvatures on the general linear group, which is also valid for many other matrix groups. Similar formula is given for a reductive Lie group. We also discuss the relation between commuting matrices and zero sectional curvature.
I connect an old result of mine on a Lie algebra generalization of the Amitsur-Levitski theorem with equations for sheets in a reductive Lie algebra and with recent results of Kostant-Wallach on the variety of singular elements in a reductive Lie algebra.
In this paper, we established the relationship among left-invariant flat connections on Lie groups, left-symmetric algebras, Frobenius Lie algebras and étale prehomogeneous vector spaces, gave a one-to-one correspondence between the left-symmetric Lie algebras with a right identity and the étale prehomogeneous vector spaces for a Lie group, and proved that, in essence, any left-symmetric structure on a reductive Lie algebra has a right identity, which implies that the classification of flat connections on a reductive Lie group $G$ amounts to that of étale prehomogeneous vector spaces for $G$. …
A connected algebraic group Q defined over a field of characteristic zero is quasi-reductive if there is an element of its dual of reductive type, that is such that the quotient of its stabiliser by the centre of Q is a reductive subgroup of GL(q), where q=Lie(Q). Due to results of M. Duflo, coadjoint representation of a quasi-reductive Q possesses a so called maximal reductive stabiliser and knowing this subgroup, defined up to a conjugation in Q, one can describe all coadjoint orbits of reductive type. In this paper, we consider quasi-reductive parabolic subalgebras of simple complex Lie alg…
Let $g_e$ be the centraliser of a nilpotent element $e$ in a finite dimensional simple Lie algebra $g$ of rank $l$ over an algebraically closed field of characteristic 0. We investigate the algebra $S(g_e)^{g_e}$ of symmetric invariants of $g_e$ and prove that if $g$ is of type $A$ or $C$, then $S(g_e)^{g_e}$ is always a graded polynomial algebra in $l$ variables. We show that this continues to hold for some nilpotent elements in the Lie algebras of other types. In type $A$ we prove that $S(g_e)^{g_e}$ is freely generated by a regular sequence in $S(g_e)$ and describe the tangent cone at $e$ t…
Root-reductive Lie algebras are direct limits of finite-dimensional reductive Lie algebras under injections which preserve the root spaces. It is known that a root-reductive Lie algebra is a split extension of an abelian Lie algebra by a direct sum of copies of finite-dimensional simple Lie algebras as well as copies of the three simple infinite-dimensional root-reductive Lie algebras sl_infty, so_infty, and sp_infty. As part of a structure theory program for root-reductive Lie algebras, Cartan subalgebras of the Lie algebra gl_infty were introduced and studied in a paper of Neeb and Penkov. I…
A Lie algebra is said to be generalised reductive if it is a direct sum of a semisimple Lie algebra and a commutative radical. In this paper we extend the BGG category $\mathcal{O}$ over complex semisimple Lie algebras to the category $\mathcal {O'}$ over complex generalised reductive Lie algebras. Then we make a preliminary research on the highest weight modules and the projective modules in this new category $\mathcal {O'}$, and generalize some conclusions in the classical case. As a critical difference from the complex semisimple Lie algebra case, we prove that there is no projective module…
The goal of this paper is to extend the standard invariant-theoretic design, well-developed in the reductive case, to the setting of representation of certain non-reductive groups. This concerns the following notions and results: the existence of generic stabilisers and generic isotropy groups for finite-dimensional representations; structure of the fields and algebras of invariants; quotient morphisms and structure of their fibres. One of the main tools for obtaining non-reductive Lie algebras is the semi-direct product construction. We observe that there are surprisingly many non-reductive L…
We prove that the nilpotent commuting variety of a reductive Lie algebra over an algebraically closed field of good characteristic is equidimensional. In characteristic zero, this confirms a conjecture of Vladimir Baranovsky. As a by-product, we obtain tat the punctual (local) Hilbert scheme parametrising the ideals of colength $n$ in $k[[X,Y]]$ is irreducible over any algebraically closed field $k$.
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…
This paper generalizes the classification in a paper of Dimitrov and Penkov of Borel subalgebras of gl_infty. Root-reductive Lie algebras are direct limits of finite-dimensional reductive Lie algebras along inclusions preserving the root spaces with respect to nested Cartan subalgebras. A Borel subalgebra of a root-reductive Lie algebra is by definition a maximal locally solvable subalgebra. The main general result of this paper is that a Borel subalgebra of an infinite-dimensional indecomposable root-reductive Lie algebra is the simultaneous stabilizer of a certain type of generalized flag in…
We show that Arthur's Paley-Wiener theorem for K-finite compactly supported smooth functions on a real reductive Lie group G of the Harish-Chandra class can be deduced from the Paley-Wiener theorem we established in the more general setting of a reductive symmetric space. In addition, we formulate an extension of Arthur's theorem to K-finite compactly supported generalized functions (distributions) on G and show that this result follows from the analogous result for reductive symmetric spaces as well.
In this paper it is shown that the wave front set of a direct integral of singular, irreducible representations of a real, reductive algebraic group is contained in the singular set. Combining this result with the results of the first paper in this series, the author obtains asymptotic results on the occurrence of tempered representations in induction and restriction problems for real, reductive algebraic groups.
Let $\mathfrak{g}$ be a root-reductive Lie algebra over an algebraically closed field $\mathbb{K}$ of characteristic $0$ with a splitting Borel subalgebra $\mathfrak{b}$ containing a splitting maximal toral subalgebra $\mathfrak{h}$. We study the category $\bar{\mathcal{O}}$ consisting of all $\mathfrak{h}$-weight $\mathfrak{g}$-modules which are locally $\mathfrak{b}$-finite and have finite-dimensional $\mathfrak{h}$-weight spaces. The focus is on very special Borel subalgebras called the Dynkin Borel subalgebras. This paper serves as an initial passage to the understanding of categories $\ma…
The nilpotent bicone of a finite dimensional complex reductive Lie algebra g is the subset of elements in g x g whose subspace generated by the components is contained in the nilpotent cone of g. The main result of this note is that the nilpotent bicone is a complete intersection. This affirmatively answers a conjecture of Kraft-Wallach concerning the nullcone. In addition, we introduce and study the characteristic submodule of g. The properties of the nilpotent bicone and the characteristic submodule are known to be very important for the understanding of the commuting variety and its ideal o…
For semisimple Lie superalgebras over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero, whose category of finite dimensional super representations is semisismple, we classify all irreducible super representations for which the alternating or symmetric square representation is irreducible or decomposes into an irreducible representation and a trivial representation.
For a finite dimensional complex Lie algebra, its index is the minimal dimension of stabilizers for the coadjoint action. A famous conjecture due to Elashvili says that the index of the centralizer of an element of a reductive Lie algebra is equal to the rank. That conjecture caught attention of several Lie theorists for years. In this paper we give an almost general proof of that conjecture.
This paper fixes a gap in my article "Support varieties of non-restricted modules over Lie algebras of reductive groups" pointed out to me by J.C. Jantzen. It was written several years ago, but never widely circulated.
Let $G_\cpl$ be a connected complex reductive Lie group, and $G$ be a real form. Let $(π,V)$ be a finite-dimensional irreducible representation of $G$. Assume $(π,V)$ admits a $G$ invariant hermitian form. {In \cite{Signature-of-a-rep-of-reductive}, an analog of the Weyl dimension formula that instead computes the signature of the invariant form for finite dimensional representations of complex Lie groups is given. The goal of this paper is to give a short alternate proof as an application of a more general twisted character theory of \cite{Dirac-Index-and-Twisted-Characters}.
Vogan and Barbasch-Vogan attach two similar invariants to representations of a reductive Lie group, one by an algebraic process, the other analytic. They conjectured that the two invariants determine each other in a definite manner. Here we prove the conjecture. Our arguments involve two finer invariants -- the characteristic cycles of representations -- which are interesting in their own right.
We calculate the rational cohomology of the commuting variety $X_{G, n}$ consisting of $n$-tuples of commuting elements of a compact reductive group $G$. This is done by studying a map from a related variety $Y_{G, n}$, which has easily calculated cohomology. The proof studies the fibers of the map and uses the Vietoris-Begle theorem to prove that the induced map on rational cohomology is an isomorphism.
Motivated by the interesting and yet scattered developments in representation theory of Banach-Lie groups, we discuss several functional analytic issues which should underlie the notion of infinite-dimensional reductive Lie group: norm ideals, triangular integrals, operator factorizations, and amenability.
This is the second paper of a series of papers on a version of categories $\mathcal{O}$ for root-reductive Lie algebras. Let $\mathfrak{g}$ be a root-reductive Lie algebra over an algebraically closed field $\mathbb{K}$ of characteristic $0$ with a splitting Borel subalgebra $\mathfrak{b}$ containing a splitting maximal toral subalgebra $\mathfrak{h}$. For some pairs of blocks $\overline{\mathcal{O}}[λ]$ and $\overline{\mathcal{O}}[μ]$, the subcategories whose objects have finite length are equivalence via functors obtained by the direct limits of translation functors. Tilting objects can also…
Let $G$ be a real, reductive algebraic group, and let $X$ be a homogeneous space for $G$ with a non-zero invariant density. We give an explicit description of a Zariski open, dense subset of the asymptotics of the tempered support of $L^2(X)$. Under additional hypotheses, this result remains true for vector bundle valued harmonic analysis on $X$. These results follow from an upper bound on the wave front set of an induced Lie group representation under a uniformity condition.
We study cohomological induction for a pair $(\frak g,\frak k)$, $\frak g$ being an infinite dimensional locally reductive Lie algebra and $\frak k \subset\frak g$ being of the form $\frak k_0 + C_\gg(\frak k_0)$, where $\frak k_0\subset\frak g$ is a finite dimensional reductive in $\frak g$ subalgebra and $C_{\gg} (\frak k_0)$ is the centralizer of $\frak k_0$ in $\frak g$. We prove a general non-vanishing and $\frak k$-finiteness theorem for the output. This yields in particular simple $(\frak g,\frak k)$-modules of finite type over $\frak k$ which are analogs of the fundamental series of ge…
In this paper an integral transform between spaces of nonstandard test functions on the affine space of dimension n is constructed. The integral transform satisfies a summation formula of Poisson type, which is derived from an analogue of the Arthur-Selberg trace formula for the Lie algebra of n by n matrices.
In math.RT/0205144 we observed that, on the level of derived categories, representations of the Lie algebra of a semisimple algebraic group over a field of finite characteristic with a given (generalized) regular central character can be identified with coherent sheaves on the formal neighborhood of the corresponding (generalized) Springer fiber. In the present paper we treat singular central characters. The basic step is the Beilinson-Bernstein localization of modules with a fixed (generalized) central character as sheaves on the partial flag variety corresponding to the singularity of the ch…
We present a closed formula, analogous to the Weyl dimension formula, for the signature of an invariant Hermitian form on any finite-dimensional irreducible representation of a real reductive Lie group, assuming that such a form exists. The formula shows in a precise sense that the form must be very indefinite. For example, if an irreducible representation of $GL(n,R)$ admits an invariant form of signature $(p,q)$, then we show that $(p-q)^2 \le p+q$. The proof is an application of Kostant's computation of the kernel of the Dirac operator.
Let $G$ be a complex reductive algebraic group, $g$ its Lie algebra and $h$ a reductive subalgebra of $g$, $n$ a positive integer. Consider the diagonal actions $G:g^n, N_G(h):h^n$. We study a relation between the algebra $C[h^n]^{N_G(h)}$ and its subalgebra consisting of restrictions to $h^n$ of elements of $C[g^n]^G$.
Let K be an algebraically closed field of characteristic 0. It is well known that any quasi-reductive Lie algebra is stable. However, there are stable Lie algebras which are not quasi-reductive. This raises the question, if for some particular class of non-reductive Lie algebras, there is equivalence between stability and quasi-reductivity. In particular, it was conjectured by Panyushev that these two notions are equivalent for biparabolic subalgebras of a reductive Lie algebra. In this paper, we give a positive answer to this conjecture.
Let $G$ be a connected reductive algebraic group $G$ over an algebraically closed field $k$ of prime characteristic $p$, and $\ggg=\Lie(G)$. In this paper, we study modular representations of the reductive Lie algebra $\ggg$ with $p$-character $χ$ of standard Levi-form associated with an index subset $I$ of simple roots. With aid of support variety theory we prove a theorem that a $U_χ(\ggg)$-module is projective if and only if it is a strong "tilting" module, i.e. admitting both $\cz_Q$- and $\cz^{w^I}_Q$-filtrations (to see Theorem \ref{THMFORINV}). Then by analogy of the arguments in \cite{…
We show that, for an arbitrary quasi-reductive Lie superalgebra with a triangular decomposition and a character $ζ$ of the nilpotent radical, the associated Backelin functor $Γ_ζ$ sends Verma modules to standard Whittaker modules provided the latter exist. As a consequence, this gives a complete solution to the problem of determining the composition factors of the standard Whittaker modules in terms of composition factors of Verma modules in the category $\mathcal O$. In the case of the ortho-symplectic Lie superalgebras, we show that the Backelin functor $Γ_ζ$ and its target category, respect…
This paper gives a classification of parabolic subalgebras of simple Lie algebras over $\CC$ that are complexifications of parabolic subalgebras of real forms for which Lynch's vanishing theorem for generalized Whittaker modules is non-vacuous. The paper also describes normal forms for the admissible characters in the sense of Lynch (at least in the quasi-split cases) and analyzes the important special case when the parabolic is defined by an even embedded TDS (three dimensional simple Lie algebra).
This note is a corrigendum to the previous version arXiv:0711.2735v3 published in J. Lie Theory. As it has been recently pointed out to me by Alexander Premet, Remark 3 of arXiv:0711.2735v3 is incorrect. We verify in this note thanks to recent results of Premet and Topley (see arXiv:1301.4653) that Theorem 25 of arXiv:0711.2735v3 remains correct in spite of this error.
In this paper we make a detailed comparison between the Paley-Wiener theorems of J. Arthur and P. Delorme. We prove that these theorems are equivalent from an a priori point of view. We also give an alternative formulation of the theorems in terms of the Hecke algebra of bi-K-finite distributions supported on K. Our techniques involve derivatives of holomorphic families of continuous representations and Harish-Chandra modules.
Let $G$ be a connected reductive algebraic group defined over an algebraically closed field $\mathbbm k$ of characteristic zero. We consider the commuting variety $\mathcal C(\mathfrak u)$ of the nilradical $\mathfrak u$ of the Lie algebra $\mathfrak b$ of a Borel subgroup $B$ of $G$. In case $B$ acts on $\mathfrak u$ with only a finite number of orbits, we verify that $\mathcal C(\mathfrak u)$ is equidimensional and that the irreducible components are in correspondence with the {\em distinguished} $B$-orbits in $\mathfrak u$. We observe that in general $\mathcal C(\mathfrak u)$ is not equidim…
Let K be a locally compact nonarchimedean field, g a split reductive Lie algebra over K and U(g) its universal enveloping algebra. We study the category C_g of coadmissible modules over the nonarchimedean Arens-Michael envelope of U(g). Let p be a parabolic subalgebra of g. The main result identifies a certain explicitly given highest weight category inside C_g with the classical parabolic BGG category of g relative to p. This paper is in final form, replaces and expands the former preprint 'BGG reciprocity for p-adic Arens-Michael envelopes of semisimple Lie algebras' and appears in Journal o…
An algebraic group is called semi-reductive if it is a semi-direct product of a reductive subgroup and the unipotent radical. Such a semi-reductive algebraic group naturally arises and also plays a key role in the study of modular representations of non-classical finite-dimensional simple Lie algebras in positive characteristic, and some other cases. Let $G$ ba a connected semi-reductive algebraic group over an algebraically closed field $\mathbb{F}$ and $\mathfrak{g}=Lie(G)$. It turns out that $G$ has many same properties as reductive groups, such as the Bruhat decomposition. In this note, we…
