English

Smoothness of stabilisers in generic characteristic

Group Theory 2026-05-27 v2 Commutative Algebra Algebraic Geometry Representation Theory

Abstract

Let RR be a commutative unital ring. Given a finitely presented affine RR-group scheme GG acting on a separated scheme XX of finite type over RR, we show that there is a prime p0p_0 such that for any RR-algebra kk which is an algebraically closed field of characteristic pp0p\geq p_0, the centraliser in GkG_k of any closed subscheme of XkX_k is smooth. When XX is not necessarily separated we show similarly that for any closed subscheme YXY \subseteq X there is a p1p_1 depending on YY such that when kk has characteristic pp1p \geq p_1 the normaliser of YY in GkG_k is smooth. We prove these results using the Lefschetz principle together with careful application of Gr\"obner basis techniques, and using a suitable notion of the complexity of an action. We apply our results to demonstrate that the Kostant-Kirillov-Souriau theorem holds for Lie algebras of algebraic groups in large positive characteristics. In particular, every such Lie algebra decomposes as a disjoint union of symplectic varieties, each of which is a coadjoint orbit.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1810.12628,
  title  = {Smoothness of stabilisers in generic characteristic},
  author = {Benjamin Martin and David I. Stewart and Lewis Topley},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.12628},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

v2; 21 pages