Inner ideals in Lie algebras and spherical buildings (Q1983970)

An inner ideal of a Lie algebra \(L\) over a field \(k\) of characteristic not 2 is a linear subspace of \(L\) satisfying \([I,[I,L]] \subseteq I\). For fields of characteristic 2, a suitable definition of inner ideals is lacking. A \(1\)-dimensional inner ideal is generated by an extremal element (a non-zero element of \(L\) with \([x,[x,L]]\subseteq k\cdot x\)) and conversely. An extremal element is called pure if \([x,[x,L]]\neq 0\). As described in the introduction, there is a well-defined way to construct a point-line geometry using the pure extremal elements, with induced collinearity. If \(L\) is finite-dimensional and simple, and generated by its pure extremal elements, then there is a uniquely determined spherical building \(B(L)\) (up to isomorphism) such that the point-line geometry mentioned above is the (root) shadow space of that building (see Theorem 1.2). The main result of this paper shows that, if \(G\) is a simple algebraic group defined over a field \(k\) of characteristic not 2, then there is a bijective correspondence between: \begin{itemize} \item The proper non-trivial inner ideals of \(L_G\), where \(L_G\) is the unique non-trivial quotient of \([\text{Lie}(G),\text{Lie}(G)]\); \item The \(\Gamma\)-invariant shadows (in terms of the extremal elements) of \(\Gamma\)-fixed flags of the building \(B(L_G \otimes k_s)\), where \(k_s\) is the separable closure of \(k\) with Galois group \(\Gamma\). \end{itemize} Only one case is excluded, namely if the characteristic of \(k\) is 3, then \(G\) is assumed not to be of absolute type \(\mathsf{A}_2\). The use of \(k_s\) is needed to reveal the extremal elements. Earlier results of Benkart and Faulkner in the case where \(k\) is algebraically closed of characteristic 0 indicate that inner ideals are well suited to recover the objects of the building directly from \(L\). In section 3, it is shown that the span of the shadow of each flag of the building is an inner ideal (the proof depending on the type of the flag, see Proposition 3.4). In section 4, the converse statement is dealt with. First it is shown algebraically that inner ideals are spanned by pure extremal elements (see Proposition 4.5), afterwards it is shown geometrically that this corresponds to the shadow of a flag (see the part after Theorem 4.7). Here, the proof depends on the type of the building.