English

Spherical subgroups and double coset varieties

Algebraic Geometry 2012-02-28 v2

Abstract

Let \GroupG\GroupG be a connected reductive algebraic group, \GroupH\GroupG\GroupH \subsetneq \GroupG a reductive subgroup and \GroupT\GroupG\GroupT \subset \GroupG a maximal torus. It is well known that if charactersitic of the ground field is zero, then the homogeneous space \GroupG/\GroupH\GroupG/\GroupH is a smooth affine variety, but never an affine space. The situation changes when one passes to double coset varieties \dcosets\GroupF\GroupG\GroupH\dcosets{\GroupF}{\GroupG}{\GroupH}. In this paper we consider the case of \GroupG\GroupG classical and \GroupH\GroupH connected spherical and prove that either the double coset variety \dcosets\GroupT\GroupG\GroupH\dcosets{\GroupT}{\GroupG}{\GroupH} is singular, or it is an affine space. We also list all pairs \GroupH\GroupG\GroupH \subset \GroupG such that \dcosets\GroupT\GroupG\GroupH\dcosets{\GroupT}{\GroupG}{\GroupH} is an affine space.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1108.2148,
  title  = {Spherical subgroups and double coset varieties},
  author = {Artem Anisimov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1108.2148},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

16 pages v2: improved readability of the text based on feedback from a referee of Journal of Lie Theory

R2 v1 2026-06-21T18:48:45.343Z