The index of nilpotent Lie poset algebras (Q2197271)

The index of a finite dimensional Lie algebra \(\mathfrak{g}\) is \[ \operatorname{ind}\mathfrak{g}= \min_{F\in\mathfrak{g}^*} \dim(\ker(B_F)), \] where \(B_F\) is the Kirillov bilinear form given by \((x, y)\mapsto F([x,y])\). The authors consider a class of nilpotent Lie algebras over an algebraically closed field \(\mathbf{k}\) of characteristic zero defined from finite posets. For a poset \(\mathcal{P}=\{1,\dots, n\}\), let \(\mathfrak{g}^{\prec}(\mathcal{P})\) be the \(\mathbf{k}\)-span of the \(n\times n\) matrices \(E_{p,q}\) for \(p\prec q\), with Lie bracket given by the matrix commutator. The authors give a formula for the index of \(\mathfrak{g}^{\prec}(\mathcal{P})\) in terms of the structure of \(\mathcal{P}\), involving the number of relations of \(\mathcal{P}\) and the number of elements above and below each \(p\in\mathcal{P}\).