Weyl's polarization theorem in positive characteristic (Q2075049)

It has long been known that Weyl's Polarization Theorem does not extend to positive characteristic in general. Loosely speaking the main result of the present paper is that Weyl's Polarization Theorem holds for connected reductive groups even in positive characteristic, provided that the characteristic is sufficiently large. More precisely, let \(G\) be a split reductive group scheme over \(\mathbb{Z}\), and let \(V\) be a free \(\mathbb{Z}\)-module of rank \(n\) with a linear action of \(G\). Suppose that \(V^*\) is a good module (in the sense of the theory of modules with good filtrations). Using some results of Seshadri, the authors prove that there exists a non-negative integer \(\delta\) such that the ring \(\mathbb{Z}[V^n]^G\) of \(G\)-invariants on the \(n\)-fold direct sum of \(V\) is a finitely generated module over the subalgebra of \(\mathbb{Z}[V^n]^G\) generated by its homogeneous elements of degree at most \(\delta\). Then they give an explicit constant \(C\) in terms of \(\delta\) satisfying the following: for any algebraically closed field \(K\) with \(\mathrm{char}(K)>C\), if \(S\) is a set of generators of the algebra \(K[V^n]^G\) of invariants of the connected reductive group \(G_K\) acting on the \(n\)-fold direct sum of the \(K\)-vector space \(V_K\), then for any \(m\ge n\) the polarizations of \(S\) (i.e. elements spanning the \(GL_m(K)\)-submodule of \(K[V^m]\) generated by \(S\)) generate the algebra \(K[V^m]^G\). In particular, under the above assumptions if \(K[V^n]^G\) is generated by elements of degree at most \(d\), then for all \(m\) the algebra \(K[V^m]^G\) is generated by elements of degree at most \(d\). As a special case, the authors consider the natural (left-right) action of \(SL_n\times SL_n\) on the space of \(m\)-tuples of \(n\times n\) matrices over \(K\). The corresponding algebra \(R(n,m)\) of invariants is called the algebra of matrix semi-invariants (and in recent years it generated interest because of some connections to computational complexity issues); denote by \(\beta(R(n,m))\) the minimal \(d\) such that the algebra \(R(n,m)\) is generated by elements of degree at most \(d\). It was known before that \(\beta(R(n,m))\le mn^3(n-1)\) for any \(K\), and \(\beta(R(n,m))\le n^6\) if \(\mathrm{char}(K)=0\). Now it is proved that if \(\mathrm{char}(K)>2n^6+n^2\), then \(\beta(R(n,m))\le \beta(R(n,n^2))\le n^6\).