Incidence geometry in a Weyl chamber. I: \(GL_n\) (Q2182615)

In this interesting and well-written paper the authors study, broadly speaking, the incidence geometry in a Weyl chamber. Let us recall necessary definitions in order to formulate the main results. Let \(\mathfrak{g}\) be a complex reductive Lie algebra and let \(\mathfrak{h}\) be a split real form of a Cartan subalgebra of \(\mathfrak{g}\). We choose a system of positive roots \(\Delta^{+}\) for \(\mathfrak{g}\). Let \[ W^{0} = \{ x \in \mathfrak{h} : \alpha(x) > 0 \, \, \forall \alpha \in \Delta^{+}\} \] be the interior of the dominant Weyl chamber, and denote by \(W\) the closure of \(W^{0}\) -- the closed dominant Weyl chamber. Fix a finite dimensional representation \(R\) of \(\mathfrak{g}\) and let \(\Pi(R) \subseteq \mathfrak{h}^{*}\) denote the set of weights of \(R\). A subchamber associated with the pair \((\mathfrak{g},R)\) is a closure of a connected component of the set \(W \setminus \bigcup_{\alpha \in \Pi(R)} \ker(\alpha)\). The subchambers are closed polyhedral cones in \(\mathfrak{h}\). A face associated with the pair \((\mathfrak{g},R)\) is either a subchamber or the intersection of a subchamber with a supporting hyperplane. A flat associated with \((\mathfrak{g},R)\) is a set of the form \[ W^{0} \cap \, \ker(\omega_{1}) \, \cap \dots \cap \, \ker(\omega_{k}), \] where \(\omega_{1}, \dots , \omega_{k} \in \Pi(R)\). The incidence geometry associated with the pair \((\mathfrak{g},R)\) is the ordered pair \(I(\mathfrak{g},R) = (\mathcal{G}(\mathfrak{g},R), \mathcal{H}(\mathfrak{g},R))\), where \(\mathcal{G}(\mathfrak{g},R)\) denotes the collection of faces associated with the pair, and \(\mathcal{H}(\mathfrak{g},R)\) denotes the collection of flats associated with the pair. It is worth emphasizing that \(I(\mathfrak{g},R)\) is independent of the choice of \(\mathfrak{h}\) and of a dual fundamental Weyl chamber in \(\mathfrak{h}\). In the present paper the authors focus on the incidence geometry of \(I(\mathfrak{gl}_{n}, V \oplus \bigwedge^{2}),\) where \(V\) is the vector representation of \(\mathfrak{gl}_{n}\) and \(\bigwedge^{2}\) is the second exterior power. Denote by \(g(n,k)\) the number of \(k\)-faces of \(I(\mathfrak{gl}_{n}, V \oplus \bigwedge^{2})\), and we collect these numbers by the following formal power series \[ G(s,t) = \sum_{n,k \geq 0}g(n,k) s^{n}t^{k}. \] Theorem A. The generating function counting faces of \(I(\mathfrak{gl}_{n}, V \oplus \bigwedge^{2})\) by dimension is given by the following rational function \[ G(s,t) = \frac{1-s}{1-2s+s^{2}-2st+s^{2}t}. \] In full analogy, we denote by \(h(n,k)\) the number of \(f\)-flats and we collect these numbers by the following formal power series \[ H(s,t) = \sum_{n,k \geq 0}h(n,k)s^{n}t^{k}. \] Theorem B. The generating function counting flats of \(I(\mathfrak{gl}_{n}, V \oplus \bigwedge^{2})\) by dimension is given by the following rational function \[ H(s,t) = \frac{(1-s)(1-st+s^{2}t)}{1-2s+s^{2}-2st+3s^{2}t-2s^{3}t+s^{2}t^{2}-2s^{3}t^{2} + s^{4}t^{2}}. \] For \(S = \{a_{1} > \dots > a_{k}\} \subseteq [n]\), define a face \(C(S)\) of \(I(\mathfrak{gl}_{n}, V \oplus \bigwedge^{2})\) as the subset of \(\mathfrak{h}\) on which \[x_{i} + x_{j} \geq 0 \,\, \text{ if } i \leq k \text{ and } j\leq a_{i},\] \[x_{i} + x_{j} \leq 0 \,\, \text{ otherwise.}\] Theorem C. The chamber and extreme rays of \(I(\mathfrak{gl}_{n}, V \oplus \bigwedge^{2})\) satisfy the following properties: \begin{itemize} \item[1)] The map \(S \rightarrow C(S)\) defines a bijection from \(2^{[n]}\) to the set of chambers of \(I(\mathfrak{gl}_{n}, V \oplus \bigwedge^{2})\). In particular, \(I(\mathfrak{gl}_{n}, V \oplus \bigwedge^{2})\) has \(2^{n}\) chambers. \item[2)] The extreme rays of \(C(S)\) are generated by the vectors \(e_{1}^{S}, \dots , e_{n}^{S}\), where \[e_{\ell}^{S} = (\underbrace{1, \dots , 1}_{\pi_{\ell}^{S}}, \underbrace{0, \dots , 0}_{n-\ell}, \underbrace{-1, \dots , -1}_{\ell-\pi_{\ell}^{S}}),\] where \(\pi_{\ell}^{S} = |S \cap [n-\ell +1,\infty)|\) counts the elements of \(S\) that are greater or equal to \(n-\ell+1\), and the vectors \(e_{1}^{S}, \dots , e_{n}^{S}\) non-negatively span \(C(S)\). In particular, the geometry \(I(\mathfrak{gl}_{n}, V \oplus \bigwedge^{2})\) is simplicial. \end{itemize} In the rest part of the paper, the authors study in detail the geometry of extreme rays (we omit this presentation due to the need of introducing more technical definitions). Let us also emphasize that the present paper is motivated by a physical problem: The obtained counts of flats and faces can be interpreted as the enumeration of the phase of the Coulomb and mixed Coulomb-Higgs branches of a five dimenional gauge theory with \(8\) supercharges in presence of hypermultiplets transforming in the fundamental and antisymmetric representation of a \(U(n)\) gauge group as described by the Intriligator-Morrison-Seiberg superpotential.