Hyperdeterminants from the \(E_8\) discriminant (Q2062750)

Given a projective variety \(X\subseteq \mathbb{P}V\) we define its dual projective variety as the Zariski closure \(X^\vee \subset \mathbb{P}V^*\) of the set of hyperplanes \(H\subset \mathbb{P}V\) containing the tangent space of \(X\) at some smooth point. When \(X^\vee\) is a hypersurface we denote its defining polynomial by \(\Delta_X\) and call it a hyperdeterminant or discriminant. With a decomposition \(V=A\oplus B\) of the vector space \(V\) we can define the ``restriction'' of \(\Delta_X\) to \(A^*\) and denote it as Res\((\Delta_X,A^*).\) The first result in this paper gives sufficient conditions on projective varieties \(X\subseteq \mathbb{P}V\) and \(Y\subseteq \mathbb{P}A\) such that if \(X^\vee\) and \(Y^\vee\) are hypersurfaces then \(\Delta_Y^m|\)Res\((\Delta_X,A^*).\) They use it then to establish division conditions involving discriminants of varieties constructed from Lie algebras. For a semi-simple Lie algebra \(\mathfrak{g}\) the adjoint variety \(X^{ad}_G\) is the projectivization of the highest weight orbit in \(\mathfrak{g}\) for the adjoint action of the Lie group \(G.\) It is known that dual varieties of adjoint varieties are hypersurfaces and its discriminant is denoted \(\Delta_G\) instead of \(\Delta_{X_G^{ad}}.\) Therefore, given a \(\mathbb{Z}_k\)-grading \(\mathfrak{g}=\mathfrak{g_0}\oplus\mathfrak{g_1}\oplus \cdots \oplus \mathfrak{g}_{k-1}\) when can consider Res\((\Delta_G,\mathfrak{g}_s^*)\) for \(s=0,\dots,k-1.\) In this context the main result of the present paper is to describe the discriminants of the Grassmanians \(\mathrm{Gr}(3,9)\) and \(\mathrm{Gr}(4,8)\) in terms of restrictions of the discriminants from exceptional Lie algebras: \([\Delta_{\mathrm{Gr}(3,9)}^2]=[\mbox{Res}(\Delta_{E_8}\bigwedge^3\mathbb{C}^9)]\) and \([\Delta_{\mathrm{Gr}(4,8)}]=[\mbox{Res}(\Delta_{E_7}\bigwedge^4\mathbb{C}^8)].\) The authors also express \(\Delta_{\mathrm{Gr}(3,9)}\) and \(\Delta_{\mathrm{Gr}(4,8)}\) as polynomials in the fundamental invariants of \(\bigwedge^3\mathbb{C}^9\) and \(\bigwedge^4\mathbb{C}^8.\)