Horispherical subalgebras of real Lie algebras (Q1241792): Difference between revisions

Let \(L\) be a finite dimensional real Lie algebra. The horispherical subalgebras of \(L\) have been studied by various authors. The present paper relates the horispherical subalgebras of \(L\) with those of its small almost algebraic hull, \(A(L)\). This is used to obtain conjugacy and decomposition results. Let \(x\in L\), \(L^c\) be the complexification of \(L\) and \(B\) be the subalgebra of \(L^c\) generated by \(1\otimes x\). Let \(R(\alpha(x))\) represent the real part of the eigenvalue \(\alpha(x)\), where \(\alpha\) is a root. A horispherical subalgebra \(Z\) of \(L\) relative to \(x\) is the intersection of \(L\) with the direct sum of those root spaces of \(B\) in \(L^c\) for which \(R(\alpha(x))< 0\). The author first shows that \(\operatorname{ad}(z)\) is nilpotent for all \(z\in Z\). As a major result he obtains that the horispherical subalgebras of \(L\) are exactly the same as those of \(A(L)\). The following applications are obtained. Let \(S\oplus T\) be a Malcev factor of \(A(L)\) with Levi factor \(S\). The horispherical subalgebra \(Z\) of \(L\) is conjugate to a horispherical subalgebra \(Z^*\) relative to \(h+t\) where \(h\in S\), \(t\in T\) and \(\operatorname{ad}(h)\) is semisimple. Furthermore, \(Z^*=Z_1\cdot Z_2\) where \(Z_1\) and \(Z_2\) are horispherical in certain subalgebras of \(L\), the first of which is \(S\) and the second of which is the subalgebra generated by \(h\) and the radical of \(L\). Henceforth, assume that \(L\) is solvable. Let \(X\) and \(Y\) be horispherical relative to \(x, y\in T\). Then \(X\) and \(Y\) are conjugate if and only if they are equal. As a consequence, a bound on the number \(k\) of conjugate classes of these subalgebras is obtained from which it follows that \(1\le k\le 2^m\) where \(m\) is the dimension of the nil-radical of \(L\). As a final observation, both bounds are shown to be sharp.