On geometric properties of orbital varieties in type A (Q639581)

In \(G=\mathrm{GL}_n({\mathbb C})\), take the Borel subgroup \(B\) of upper triangular matrices and its unipotent radical \(N\subset B\) consisting of upper unitriangular matrices. The respective Lie algebras are denoted by lowercase Fraktur letters. An orbital variety is an irreducible component of \({\mathcal O}\cap{\mathfrak n}\), where \({\mathcal O}\subset{\mathfrak g}\) is a nilpotent \(G\)-orbit; all these components have one and the same dimension \(\dim{\mathcal O}/2\) [\textit{N. Spaltenstein}, Classes unipotentes et sous-groupes de Borel. Lecture Notes in Mathematics. 946. Berlin-Heidelberg-New York: Springer-Verlag. (1982; Zbl 0486.20025)]. Orbital varieties play an important rôle in geometric representation theory, being related to primitive ideals in the universal enveloping algebra \(U(\mathfrak g)\) [\textit{A. Joseph}, J. Algebra 88, 238--278 (1984; Zbl 0539.17006)]. The paper addresses a problem of smoothness and existence of a dense \(B\)-orbits in orbital varieties. Nilpotent orbits are parametrized by Young diagrams: \({\mathcal O}={\mathcal O}_{\lambda}\), where the rows of \(\lambda\) have lengths \(\lambda_i\) equal to the sizes of the Jordan blocks of \(x\in{\mathcal O}\). It is proved that all orbital varieties \({\mathcal V}\subset{\mathcal O}_{\lambda}\cap{\mathfrak n}\) are smooth if and only if either \(\lambda\) is a hook, or it has two rows, or it has three rows, the third one being of length 1 or all three being of length \(\leq2\). For any standard Young tableau \(T\) of shape \(\lambda\), put \({\mathcal V}_T=\overline{B(\bigoplus{\mathbb C}e_{ij})}\cap{\mathcal O}_{\lambda}\), where the direct sum is taken over all pairs \(i<j\) such that the horizontal position of \(j\) is strictly on the right of that of \(i\), and \(e_{ij}\) are matrix units. This yields a 1--1 parametrization of orbital varieties \({\mathcal V}={\mathcal V}_T\) by standard Young tableaux [\textit{R. Steinberg}, Invent. Math. 36, 209--224 (1976; Zbl 0352.20035)]. In the case of two-column \(T\), a criterion of smoothness for \({\mathcal V}_T\) is obtained in terms of the so-called cup-diagram of \(T\). For any permutation \(\pi=(\pi_1,\dots,\pi_r)\) of the sequence of row lengths \((\lambda_1,\dots,\lambda_r)\) one defines two special orbital varieties. Namely let \({\mathfrak p}_{\pi}\subset{\mathfrak g}\) be the parabolic subalgebra of blockwise triangular matrices with diagonal block sizes \(\pi_1,\dots,\pi_r\) and \({\mathfrak p}_{\pi}={\mathfrak l}_{\pi}\oplus{\mathfrak n}_{\pi}\) be the standard Levi decomposition. The Richardson orbital variety \({\mathcal V}_{\pi}^{\roman R}={\mathcal O}_{\lambda^*}\cap{\mathfrak n}_{\pi}\) is dense in \({\mathfrak n}_{\pi}\), whence smooth. The Bala--Carter orbital variety \({\mathcal V}_{\pi}^{\roman BC}={\mathcal O}_{\lambda}\cap\overline{By}\), where \(y\in{\mathfrak l}_{\pi}\cap{\mathfrak n}\) is a regular nilpotent, contains a dense \(B\)-orbit. The standard tableau \(T\) corresponding to \({\mathcal V}_{\pi}^{\roman BC}\) is constructed as follows: fill a diagram of shape \(\pi\) by the numbers \(1,\dots,n\) subsequently increasing in rows from top to bottom and then push the excess boxes to the top so as to obtain a table of shape \(\lambda\). Then \({\mathcal V}_{\pi}^{\roman R}\) corresponds to the transposed table \(T^*\) [Zbl 0352.20035]. It is proved in the paper that \({\mathcal V}_{\pi}^{\roman BC}\) is singular if and only if \(\pi\) contains a subsequence majorizing \((1,2,2,1)\) or \((2,3,2)\). In particular, this means that there always exists a singular Bala--Carter orbital variety in \({\mathcal O}_{\lambda}\cap{\mathfrak n}\) unless all orbital varieties are smooth. As for existence of a dense \(B\)-orbits, the authors prove similar assertions, which can be uniformly formulated as follows: all orbital varieties in \({\mathcal O}_{\lambda}\cap{\mathfrak n}\) contain a dense \(B\)-orbit if and only if all orbital varieties in \({\mathcal O}_{\lambda^*}\cap{\mathfrak n}\) are smooth; in the two-row case \({\mathcal V}_T\) contains a dense \(B\)-orbit if and only if \({\mathcal V}_{T^*}\) is smooth; \({\mathcal V}_{\pi}^{\roman R}\) contains a dense \(B\)-orbit if and only if \({\mathcal V}_{\pi}^{\roman BC}\) is smooth. These results suggest to conjecture that the duality on orbital varieties given by transposing standard Young tableaux interchanges the properties of smoothness and having a dense \(B\)-orbit. The proofs are based on the correspondence between orbital varieties and Springer fibers. Namely for any \(x\in{\mathfrak n}\) the subvariety \(X=\{g\mid g^{-1}x\in{\mathfrak n}\}\subset G\) is \((Z_G(x)\times B)\)-stable and fibered over both \(Gx\cap{\mathfrak n}\) and the Springer fiber \({\mathcal B}_x\) under the maps \(G\to Gx\), \(g\mapsto g^{-1}x\), and \(G\to G/B\). This allows to reduce the questions on orbital varieties to similar questions concerning Springer fibers, many of which having been solved in the previous papers by the authors [Sel. Math., New Ser. 16, No. 3, 393--418 (2010; Zbl 1209.14037), Lie Theory 21, No. 1, 205--242 (2011; Zbl 1222.14106)]. All questions are reduced to several basic cases by the following steps: if a standard tableau \(T'\) is obtained from a standard tableau \(T\) by removing the box \(n\), then smoothness of (a dense \(B\)-orbit in) \({\mathcal V}_T\) yields smoothness of (a dense \(B\)-orbit in) \({\mathcal V}_{T'}\) and the converse is true if \(n\) sits in the last column (row) of \(T\); \({\mathcal V}_T\) is smooth (has a dense \(B\)-orbit) if and only if \({\mathcal V}_{T^{\roman S}}\) is so, where \(T\mapsto T^{\roman S}\) is the Schützenberger involution.