English

Extremal rays in the Hermitian eigenvalue problem for arbitrary types

Algebraic Geometry 2018-03-30 v2 Representation Theory

Abstract

The Hermitian eigenvalue problem asks for the possible eigenvalues of a sum of Hermitian matrices given the eigenvalues of the summands. This is a problem about the Lie algebra of the maximal compact subgroup of G=SL(n)G=\operatorname{SL}(n) . There is a polyhedral cone (the "eigencone") determining the possible answers to the problem. These eigencones can be defined for arbitrary semisimple groups GG, and also control the (suitably stabilized) problem of existence of non-zero invariants in tensor products of irreducible representations of GG. We give a description of the extremal rays of the eigencones for arbitrary semisimple groups GG by first observing that extremal rays lie on regular facets, and then classifying extremal rays on an arbitrary regular face. Explicit formulas are given for some extremal rays, which have an explicit geometric meaning as cycle classes of interesting loci, on an arbitrary regular face, and the remaining extremal rays on that face are understood by a geometric process we introduce, and explicate numerically, called induction from Levi subgroups. Several numerical examples are given. The main results, and methods, of this paper generalize work of [Bel17] which handled the case of G=SL(n)G=\operatorname{SL}(n).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1803.03350,
  title  = {Extremal rays in the Hermitian eigenvalue problem for arbitrary types},
  author = {Prakash Belkale and Joshua Kiers},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1803.03350},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

28 pages. The center of a Levi subgroup was replaced by the connected component of identity in the center in some definitions

R2 v1 2026-06-23T00:47:15.575Z