Compactification of classical groups (Q1866529)

An analytic compactification of a Lie group \(G\) is an analytic manifold in which \(G\) embeds analytically with an open dense image. A classical group \(G\) is called group of type I if it is the isometry group of a nondegenerate sesquilinear form on a \(D\)-vector space. Here \(D\) is either \(\mathbb{R}\), \(\mathbb{C}\) or the Hamiltonians \(\mathbb{H}\). The author constructs a natural compactification of a classical group \(G\) where \(G\) is classical of type I or \(G\) is \(\text{GL}_n (D)\). In Section 1, the author explains the special case where \(G=\text{Sp} (n,\mathbb{R})\) which he calls Vogan's construction. It illustrates very clearly the main ideas and the method. Briefly, let \(\mathbb{R}^{2 n}\) denote the real vector space \(\mathbb{R}^{2n}\) equipped with a non-degenerate symplectic form \(\omega\). We form \(\mathbb{R}^{4n}= \mathbb{R}^{2n} \oplus \mathbb{R}^{2n}\) with the symplectic form \(\omega\oplus (-\omega)\) on it. Let \({\mathcal L}(\mathbb{R}^{4 n})\) denote the (compact) Grassmannian of Lagrangian subspaces in \(\mathbb{R}^4\). We can embed \(\text{Sp} (n,\mathbb{R})\) into \({\mathcal L}(\mathbb{R}^{4n})\) by sending \(g\) into the Lagrangian subspace \(\{(x,gx) \in \mathbb{R}^{2n} \oplus \mathbb{R}^{2n}\}\). It remains to show that the image of \(\text{Sp}(n,\mathbb{R})\) above is open dense in \({\mathcal L}(\mathbb{R}^{4n}\)) and hence \({\mathcal L}(\mathbb{R}^{4n})\) is a compactification of \(\text{Sp}(n,\mathbb{R})\). The author accomplishes this by computing the dimensions of the \(\text{Sp}(n,\mathbb{R})^2\)-orbits on \({\mathcal L} (\mathbb{R}^{2n})\) which is also of independent interest. In the appendix, the author shows that the above Vogan's construction of the compactification of \(\text{Sp} (n,\mathbb{R})\) is the same as the one he constructed in [J. Diff. Geometry 51, 375-399 (1999; Zbl 1073.22008)].