Curved Casimir operators and the BGG machinery (Q2473518)

Let \(G\) be a semisimple Lie group and \(P\subset G\) a parabolic subgroup. The authors show that the Casimir operator on a representation of \(G\) induced from \(P\) may be naturally extended to an invariant differential operator on parabolic geometries \((G,P)\). This extension, which the authors call the \textit{curved Casimir operator}, is described using the fundamental derivative (or `fundamental \(D\)-operator' in the terminology of [\textit{A. Čap} and \textit{A. Gover}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 354, No. 4, 1511--1548 (2002; Zbl 0997.53016)]. The authors obtain a simple formula for the curved Casimir operator on natural bundles, and then use the formula to show that this operator acts by a scalar on natural bundles induced by irreducible representations of \(P\). The authors also study the curved Casimir operator in the context of tractor bundles; this leads to a connection with the machinery of Bernstein-Gelfand-Gelfand (BGG) sequences. Finally, the article contains an interesting discussion about the relationship between eigenspaces of the Casimir operator and BGG resolutions: Restricting a twisted de Rham resolution to certain eigenspaces for the Casimir operator induces a resolution of a finite dimensional irreducible \(G\)-representation by principal series representations. The \(P\)-representations that induce these principal series representations are in turn duals of representations used to construct the generalized Verma modules in the BGG resolution (see Corollary 2).