Orientability of vector bundles over real flag manifolds (Q428823)

The authors give a criterion for the orientability of certain vector bundles over generalized real flag manifolds. More precisely, let \(G\) be a linear connected real semisimple non-compact Lie group with Lie algebra \(\mathfrak{g}\). Let \(\mathfrak{g}=\mathfrak{k}\oplus \mathfrak{s}\) be the Cartan decomposition corresponding to a Cartan involution \(\theta\). Denote by \(K\) the maximal compact subgroup of \(G\) with Lie algebra \(\mathfrak{k}.\) Let \(\mathfrak{a}\) be a maximal abelian subalgebra of \(\mathfrak{s}\). Let \(a^+\) denote a Weyl chamber, \(W, \Pi, \Pi^+, \Sigma\), the Weyl group of \((\mathfrak{g}, \mathfrak{a})\), the set of (restricted) roots, the set of positive roots and the set of simple roots respectively. For any subset \(\Theta\subset \Sigma\), let \(\mathfrak{a}_\Theta\) the subspace \(\{H\in\mathfrak{a}\mid \alpha(H)=0~\forall \alpha\in \Theta\}\subset \mathfrak{a}\). The `standard' parabolic subgroup \(P_\Theta\) of \(G\) of type \(\Theta\) is the one with Iwasawa decomposition \(K_\Theta.A.N^+\) where \(K_\Theta\) is the centralizer in \(K\) of \(\mathfrak{a}_\Theta\), \(A=\exp(\mathfrak{a})\subset G\), and \(N^+=\exp(\mathfrak{n}^+)\) where \(\mathfrak{n}^+=\sum_{\alpha\in \Pi^+}\mathfrak{g}_\alpha\). The space \(\mathbb{F}_\Theta:=G/P_\Theta\) is the real flag manifold of the title. This is a generalization of the classical real flag manifold \(Flag(d_1,\ldots, d_k;n)=\text{SL}(n,\mathbb{R})/P\), the space of all flags \(0\subset A_1\subset\cdots\subset A_k=\mathbb{R}^n, ~\dim A_i=d_i\), each \(A_i\) being a real vector subspace of \(\mathbb R^n\). Here \(P\subset \text{SL}(n,\mathbb R)\) is a certain block upper traiangular subgroup of \(\text{SL}(n,\mathbb{R})\). Let \(V\) be a homogeneous vector bundle over \(K/L\) associated to a representation of \(L\) on a real vector space \(V_0\). The authors observe that \(V\) is orientable if and only if \(det(k)>0\) for all \(k\in K\). As an application the authors show in Theorem 3.2 that the flag manifold \(\mathbb{F}_\Theta\) is orientable if and only if, for each simple root \(\alpha\in \Sigma\), the sum \(\sum_{\beta} n_\beta\langle \alpha^\vee, \beta\rangle \equiv 0\) mod \(2\) where the sum is over all completementary roots, namely, those \(\beta\in \Pi^-\) for which the root space \(\mathfrak{g}_\beta \) is not contained in \(Lie(P_\Theta)\). Here \(n_\beta\) is the dimension of the root space \(\mathfrak{g}_\beta\). When \(\mathfrak{g}\) is a real split form all the root multiplicities \(n_\beta\) are \(1\). A detailed analysis is carried out in this case. In particular, the authors obtain the well-known result that \(Flag(d_1,\ldots, d_k;n)\) is orientable if and only if \(d_{i+1}-d_i, 0\leq i\leq k, \) are all of the same parity. Here \(d_0=0, d_{k+1}=n\).