Separation indices of irreducible root systems (Q650422)

From the text: In connection with the study of certain special actions of semisimple algebraic groups, \textit{V. Popov} [Algebraic groups and homogeneous spaces. Proceedings of the international colloquium, Mumbai, India, 2004. Studies in Mathematics. Tata Inst. Fundam. Res. 19, 481--523 (2007; Zbl 1135.14038)] introduced the notion of the separation index \(\text{sep}(\Delta)\) of an irreducible root system \(\Delta\) and obtained the bounds \(\text{rk}(\Delta) + 1 \leq \text{sep}(\Delta) \leq | W(\Delta)|\), where \(W(\Delta)\) is the Weyl group of \(\Delta\). In further papers by V. \textit{S. Zhgun} and \textit{D. V. Mironov} [Russ. Math. Surv. 62, No. 6, 1228--1230 (2007); translation from Usp. Mat. Nauk 62, No. 6, 171--172 (2007; Zbl 1189.17010); Math. Notes 82, No. 2, 272--276 (2007; Zbl 1287.17023); translation from Mat. Zametki 82, No. 2, 310--314 (2007)] and by \textit{F. V. Petrov} [in: Mathematical Education (MTsNMO, Moscow, 2009), Ser. 3, Vol. 13, 189--190 (2009)], it was shown that the upper bound can be rendered much smaller than the order of the Weyl group. For example, for root systems of types \(B_\ell\), \(C_\ell\), and \(D_\ell\), a bound of order \(2^\ell\) was obtained. The objective of this paper is to sharpen the lower and the upper bound for the separation index. In particular, we prove that the separation index of a classical root system of rank \(\ell\) is at most \(2^{\ell^2}\).