Polar sets as nondegenerate critical submanifolds in symmetric spaces (Q1804199)

In this note the authors realize a connection between the pairs and the Morse-Bott theory of isotopy-invariant functions on the space \(M\). If \(M = G/K\) they consider conjugation-invariant functions on \(G_ 1\) which they pull back to \(M\) by means of the quadratic representation. So they reduce their study to that of class-functions at the group level, and calculations may be restricted to a maximal torus in the group. If \(H\) is a vertex of the fundamental simplex and if \(p = \text{exp }H\) is a critical point of a class-function on \(G_ 1\), then the eigenspaces of the Hessian coincide with the factoring obtained from the Borel-De Siebenthal splitting at \(p\). In this situation, the question of nondegeneracy and the calculation of the index is reduced to finding the eigenvalues corresponding to each factor. To construct suitable class- functions they treat the real parts of the characters of irreducible representations. Some care must be taken with the choice of representation so that one does not obtain degenerate critical submanifolds, the authors notice.