Standard monomial bases and geometric consequences for certain rings of invariants (Q2493460)

\textit{C. De Concini} and \textit{C. Procesi} [Adv. Math. 21, 330--354 (1976; Zbl 0347.20025)] constructed characteristic-free bases for the rings of invariants appearing in classical invariant theory for the action of the general linear, symplectic and orthogonal groups. The case of the \(\text{SL}_n(K)\)-action on \(X=V^{\oplus m}\oplus(V^*)^{\oplus q}\), \(V=K^n\), where \(K\) is an algebraically closed field of arbitrary characteristic and \(m,q>n\), is also considered there, and a set of algebra generators for \(K[X]^{\text{SL}_n(K)}\) is given. The main goal of this article is to prove the Cohen-Macaulayness for \(K[X]^{\text{SL}_n(K)}\) (in characteristic zero it follows from a result of J.~Boutot). Also the first and second fundamental theorems for the \(\text{SL}_n(K)\)-action are presented. In order to prove the Cohen-Macaulayness, the authors use the deformation technique. More precisely, they construct a `standard monomial' basis for the ring of invariants \(S=K[X]^{\text{SL}_n(K)}\), consider a `graded version' \(R(D)\) of \(S\), where \(D\) is a distributive lattice, and prove that \(\text{Spec}(R(D))\) flatly degenerates to the toric variety associated to \(D\). Note that the article under review does not use the results of De Concini-Procesi, and provides a different proof of their theorem 3.3.