Regular orbit closures in module varieties (Q2472335)

Let \(k\) be an algebraically closed field, and denote by \(\mathbb{M}(d)\) the algebra of \(d\times d\) matrices with coefficients in \(k\). For any (associative finitely generated unital) \(k\)-algebra \(A\) the set \(\text{mod}_{A}(d)\) of \(A\)-module structures on \(k^{d}\) is an affine variety, and can be viewed as a closed subset of \( \mathbb{M}(d)) ^{t}\) for some \(t\) in a natural way. The \(\text{GL}(d)\)-orbits in \(\text{mod}_{A}(d)\) (where \(\text{GL}(d)\) acts via conjugation) correspond to isomorphism classes of \(d\)-dimensional \(A\)-module, For a given \(A\)-module \(M\) its orbit will be denoted \(\mathcal{O}_{M},\) and the Zariski closure will be denoted \(\mathcal{\bar{O}}_{M}.\) The work under review investigates the finite dimensional \(A\)-modules \(M\) such that \(\mathcal{\bar{O}}_{M}\) is a regular variety. The primary result is that, for a given \(A\)-module \(M,\) the orbit closure \(\mathcal{\bar{O}}_{M}\) is a regular variety if and only if \(B:=A/\text{Ann}(M)\) is hereditary and \(\text{Ext}_{B}^{1}( M,M) =0,\) where \(\text{Ann}(M)\) is the annihilator of \(M\). As \(\text{mod}_{B}(d)\) is a closed \(\text{GL}(d)\)-subvariety of \(\text{mod}_{A}(d)\) which contains \(\mathcal{\bar{O}}_{M},\) \(d=\dim_{k}M,\) and \(M\) is faithful as a \(B\)-module we see that the above result is equivalent to the following. Let \(M\) be a module over a finite dimensional algebra \(B\). Then \(\mathcal{\bar{O}}_{M}\) is a regular variety if and only if \(B\) is hereditary and \(\text{Ext}_{B}^{1}(M) =0.\) The proof of main result exploits the relationship of the above to representations of quivers. Indeed, \(B\) is Morita-equivalent to a quotient of a finite quiver algebra \(kQ\) by an admissible ideal \(I\). Under this equivalence \(B\) is hereditary if and only if \(I\) is trivial. A faithful \(B\)-module corresponds to a representation \(N\) in \(\text{rep}_{Q}(\mathbf{d}) \) for some vector \(\mathbf{d}\) of natural numbers such that \(\text{Ann}(N) =I,\) where \(\text{rep}_{Q}(\mathbf{d})\) is the vector space of representations of \(Q\) of dimension \(\mathbf{d}.\) It turns out that \(\mathcal{\bar{O}}_{M}\) is regular if and only if \(\mathcal{\bar{O}}_{N}\) is, and the main theorem reduces to the following. Let \(N\) be a representation in \(\text{rep}_{Q}(\mathbf{d}) \) such that \(\text{Ann}(N)\) is an admissible ideal in \(kQ\) and \(\mathcal{\bar{O}}_{N}\) is regular. Then \(\text{Ann}(N)\) is trivial and \(\mathcal{\bar{O}}_{N}=\text{rep}_{Q}(\mathbf{d}).\) Most of the paper is devoted to the proof of this result.