A recursive formula for characters of simple Lie algebras (Q2640685)

Let \({\mathfrak g}\) be a finite dimensional complex simple Lie algebra and let \(\Lambda\) be the weight lattice for \({\mathfrak g}\). Let \(\gamma_ j\), \(j=1,2,...,r\), be the nonsimple positive roots of \({\mathfrak g}\) and let \(\beta_ i\), \(i=1,2,...,n=2^ r\), be the sums of distinct \(\gamma_ j\). If \(D_{\lambda}\) is a finite dimensional irreducible representation of \({\mathfrak g}\) with highest weight \(\lambda\), then let P(\(\lambda\)) be the set of all weights of \(D_{\lambda}\) (taken with unit multiplicity). Define F(\(\lambda\)) to be the characteristic function of P(\(\lambda\)). For any weight \(\mu\in \Lambda\) we also define \(N(\mu)=\sum_{w\in W}sign(w) \exp (w\mu)\) and \({\hat \chi}_{\lambda}=N(\mu +\delta)/N(\delta),\) where W is the Weyl group of \({\mathfrak g}\) and \(\delta\) is the half-sum of all positive roots. The main result of the paper is the formula \(\chi (\lambda)=F(\lambda)- \sum^{n}_{i=1}\epsilon_ i{\hat \chi}_{\lambda -\beta_ i}\) for the character of the finite dimensional irreducible representation \(D_{\lambda}\). It is shown that \({\hat \chi}{}_{\lambda -\beta_ i}\) are characters of irreducible representations of \({\mathfrak g}\) with highest weights lower than \(\lambda\). Therefore, the formula obtained is a recurrence formula for characters. The author has derived some corollaries of this formula.