A branching law from Sp(n) to Sp(q) \(\times\) Sp(n-q) and an application to Laplace operator spectra (Q2254388)

The aim of this article is to give a description of the spectrum \(\mathrm{Spec}_p(M)\) of the Laplace operator \(\Delta_p\) acting on the space \(C^\infty(\Lambda^p M)\) of differential \(p\)-forms on the compact symmetric space \(M=\mathrm{Sp}(n)/\mathrm{Sp}(q)\times \mathrm{Sp}(n-q)\). The main tool used by the author to obtain this description is the branching rules to decompose the restriction of the \(p\)-th exterior power of the adjoint representation of \(G=\mathrm{Sp}(n)\) on \(M\) into irreducible representations of \(K=\mathrm{Sp}(q)\times \mathrm{Sp}(n-q)\). The first step used to obtain this description is to identify \(\Delta_p\) with the Casimir operator for \(G=\mathrm{Sp}(n)\). The second one is to view \(C^\infty(\bigwedge^pM)\) as a representation of \(G\) and to decompose this representation into irreducible ones, the Casimir operator acting by \(<\lambda,\lambda+\rho>\) on the irreducible finite dimensional representation of highest weight \(\lambda\). Here \(\rho\) denotes the half sum of the positive roots for \((\mathfrak{g},\mathfrak{t})\), where \(\mathfrak{t}\) is a fixed Cartan subalgebra of the complexified Lie algebra \(\mathfrak{g}\) of \(G\). To get the decomposition of the \(G\)-representation \(C^\infty(\bigwedge^pM)\) into irreducibles, the author reduces the problem, via the Frobenius reciprocity, to study the branching rules for restrictions of representations of \(G\) to representations of \(K=\mathrm{Sp}(q)\times \mathrm{Sp}(n-q)\). To compute this branching law, the author first looks at the case \(q=2\) and, for the other cases, he gives a recursive method by considering the restriction of the \(K\)-module \((\mathfrak{g}/\mathfrak{k})^*\) to the subgroup \(T\times \mathrm{Sp}(q-1)\times \mathrm{Sp}(n-q)\), where \(T\) is a torus in \(\mathrm{Sp}(1)\). The branching rules given by the author are not really explicit and getting some data of the decomposition is left to the reader, as the scalar for the action of the Casimir operator on each irreducible component and multiplicities of the irreducible components in the decomposition.