Secant varieties and degrees of invariants (Q2279795)

Let \(G\) be a connected complex reductive algebraic group and \(V\) be a finite dimensional \(G\)-module. In the paper under review, the author studies the ring of invariant polynomials \(\mathbb{C}[V]^{G}\) and in particular the degrees of the generators of \(\mathbb{C}[V]^{G}\) in a minimal generating set. The first main result is Theorem 1, which identifies certain divisors of the degrees of the generators of \(\mathbb{C}[V]^{G}\). In more detail, let \(H \subset G\) be a Cartan subgroup with root system \(\Delta\) and let \(\Lambda(V)\) denote the set of \(H\)-weights of \(V\). Suppose that \(M\) is a subset of \(\Lambda(V)\) which satisfies the following two conditions: \begin{itemize} \item[(i)] \(M \cap (M + \Delta) = \emptyset\) (such sets are called root-distinct) \item[(ii)] \(M\) is linearly dependent over \(\mathbb{Z}_{>0}\) and minimal with this property. \end{itemize} Let \(b_M =\sum_{ \nu \in M} b_{\nu}\), where \(b_{\nu} \in \mathbb{Z}_{>0}\) are the unique coefficients with greatest common divisor equal to \(1\) such that \(\sum_{\nu \in M} b_{\nu}\nu = 0\). Then, Theorem 1 states that \(\mathbb{C}[V]^{G}\) admits a generator of degree \(kb_M\) for some integer \(k\geq 1\). A similar construction of invariants for the case of tori has been introduced in \textit{D. Wehlau} [Ann. Inst. Fourier, Vol. 43, 1055--1066 (1993, Zbl 0789.14009)]. Theorem 1 is proven in Section 2 along with some properties of root-distinct sets which follow \textit{N. Wildberger} [Trans. AMS 330, 257--268 (1992, Zbl 0762.22012)]. In Sections 3 and 4, the author considers the case when \(G\) is semisimple and \(V = V(\lambda)\) is an irreducible representation of \(G\) with highest weight \(\lambda \neq 0\). Then there is a unique closed \(G\)-orbit in \(\mathbb{P}(V)\), namely \(\mathbb{X} = G[v_{\lambda}]\), where \(v_{\lambda}\) is a highest weight vector corresponding to \(\lambda\). The main result of Section 3 is Theorem 10, which gives a lower bound for the degrees of the generators of \(\mathbb{C}[V]^{G}\) using the secant varieties of \(\mathbb{X}\). More precisely, let \(J = \mathbb{C}[V]^{G}_{\geq 1}\) denote the ideal in the invariant ring vanishing at 0 and let \(\mathbb{P}^{\mathrm{us}} \subset \mathbb{P}\) be the zero-locus of \(J\). The complement \(\mathbb{P}^{\mathrm{ss}} = \mathbb{P} \setminus \mathbb{P}^{\mathrm{us}}\) is called the semistable locus. By \(\Sigma_r = \sigma_r(\mathbb{X})\) the author denotes the \(r\)-th secant variety of \(\mathbb{X}\). The rank of semistability of \(V\) (which exists when \(\mathbb{C}[V]^G \neq \mathbb{C}\)) is defined by \[ r_{\mathrm{ss}} = \min \{r \in \mathbb{N}; \Sigma_r \cap \mathbb{P}^{\mathrm{ss}}\neq \emptyset \}. \] Then, Theorem 10 states that if \(\mathbb{C}[V]^G \neq \mathbb{C}\) and if \(d_1\) denotes the minimal positive degree of a generator of \(\mathbb{C}[V]^G\), then \(r_{\mathrm{ss}} \leq d_1\). The author also gives examples that this lower bound may or may not be exact. In Section 4, the author considers a special class of projective varieties \(\mathbb{X} \subset \mathbb{P}(V)\), called \textit{rs-continuous}. For this class of varieties there is a bijective correspondence between the degrees of the generators \(\{d_1, \dots, \mathrm{No}(G,V)\}\) of \(\mathbb{C}[V]^G\) in a minimal set of generators, where \(\mathrm{No}(G,V)\) denotes the Noether number, i.e., the maximal degree of a generator of \(\mathbb{C}[V]^G\), and the set of numbers \(\{r_{\mathrm{ss}}, \dots, r_{g}\}\), where \(\Sigma_{r_{\mathrm{ss}}}, \dots, \Sigma_{r_g} = \mathbb{P}(V)\) are the secant varieties of \(\mathbb{X}\), which intersect the semistable locus \(\mathbb{P}^{\mathrm{ss}}\).