English

The projective geometry of Freudenthal's magic square

Algebraic Geometry 2007-05-23 v1 Differential Geometry Representation Theory

Abstract

We connect the algebraic geometry and representation theory associated to Freudenthal's magic square. We give unified geometric descriptions of several classes of orbit closures, describing their hyperplane sections and desingularizations, and interpreting them in terms of composition algebras. In particular, we show how a class of invariant quartic polynomials can be viewed as generalizations of the classical discriminant of a cubic polynomial.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/9908039,
  title  = {The projective geometry of Freudenthal's magic square},
  author = {J. M. Landsberg and L. Manivel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/9908039},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

30 pages, LaTeX2e