Schubert varieties and the fusion products (Q1769585)

The notion of a `fusion product' of irreducible highest weight Lie algebra representations (essentially a grading of a tensor product of formal evaluation modules) was first introduced by \textit{B. Feigin} and \textit{S. Loktev} [Transl., Ser. 2, Am. Math. Soc. 194(44), 61--79 (1999; Zbl 0974.17008)]. In the last several years fusion products have been of interest in combinatorical representation theory. For example, it has been conjectured that fusion products are related to the generalized Kostka polynomials as described by \textit{A. Schilling} and \textit{S. O. Warnaar} [Commun. Math. Phys. 202, 359--401 (1999; Zbl 0935.05090)]. A nice introduction to this topic may be found, for example, in \textit{R.\ Kedem}'s paper [Int. Math. Res. Not. 2004, No. 25, 1273--1298 (2004; Zbl 1074.17003)]. Let \(A\in {\mathbb N}^n\). The present paper introduces the closure of a projectivized orbit, denoted \(sh_A\) (and called a \textit{Schubert variety}), of a lowest weight vector within a fusion product \(M^A\) of \(\mathbf{sl}_2\)-modules. The authors' purpose is to describe geometric properties of \(sh _A\) that tie in with algebraic aspects of \(M^A\). For example, the authors show that \(sh _A\) is a projective algebraic variety. In addition, they determine the Lie algebra of vector fields on \(sh_A\) has basis \(\{e\otimes t^j, f\otimes t^{j}, h\otimes t^{j}, L_k\mid 1\leq j\leq n-1, 1\leq k\leq n-2\}\) where \(e,f,h\) are a Chevalley basis for \(\mathbf{sl}_2\) and the \(L_k\) are from the Virosoro algebra. This associates the vector fields on \(sh _A\) with the underlying algebra \(\mathbf{sl}_2\otimes {\mathbb C}[t]\). Also, the authors show that the fusion product \(M^A\) may be recovered as a space of sections of a certain line bundle over \(sh _A\), and that all higher cohomologies vanish.