The b-functions for prehomogeneous vector spaces of commutative parabolic type and generalized universal Verma modules

We shall give a uniform expression and a uniform calculation for the b-functions of prehomogeneous vector spaces of commutative parabolic type, which were previously calculated by case-by-case analysis. Our method is a generalization of Kashiwara's approach using the universal Verma modules. We shall also give a new proof for the criterion of the irreducibility of the generalized Verma module in terms of b-functions due to Suga, Gyoja, Wachi.