A discrete branching law for \((G,G^{(\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z})^n})\) (Q6970136)

This paper is concerned with the restriction of irreducible representations of a simple Lie group \(G\) to a closed subgroup \(G'\). More precisely, the author studies the question whether there exist irreducible representations of \(G\) whose restriction decomposes discretely into a direct sum of irreducible representations of \(G'\). In the case where \(G'=G^\sigma\) is the fixed point subgroup of an involution \(\sigma\) of \(G\), this question was answered completely by \textit{T. Kobayashi} and \textit{Y. Oshima} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 703, 201--223 (2015; Zbl 1321.22016)] in the sense that they provided a full list of those symmetric pairs \((G,G^\sigma)\) for which there exists an irreducible representation of \(G\) that decomposes discretely under restriction to \(G^\sigma\).\N\NThe fixed point subgroup \(G^\sigma\) of an involution \(\sigma\) of \(G\) can be viewed as the fixed point subgroup \(G^\Gamma\) of the group \(\Gamma=\{\mathrm{id}_G,\sigma\}\) of automorphisms of \(G\). The group \(\Gamma\) is isomorphic to \(\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}\) and the author is interested in discrete decomposability for fixed point subgroups \(G^\Gamma\) of more general groups of automorphisms \(\Gamma\), namely \(\Gamma\simeq(\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z})^n\). Such groups are generated by \(n\) commuting involutions. More precisely, the author conjectures that the existence of an irreducible representation of \(G\) that is discretely decomposable when restricted to \(G^\Gamma\), \(\Gamma\simeq(\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z})^2\) a Klein four subgroup of automorphisms of \(G\) not containing any Cartan involution, implies for every involution \(\sigma\in\Gamma\) the existence of an irreducible representation of \(G\) whose restriction to \(G^\sigma\) is discretely decomposable.\N\NIn [\textit{Y. Chen} and \textit{H. He}, Int. J. Math. 34, No. 1, Article ID 2250094, 16 p. (2023; Zbl 1521.22012); \textit{J. Ding} et al., Geom. Dedicata 218, No. 3, Paper No. 69, 13 p. (2024; Zbl 1543.22012)], this conjecture was confirmed for symplectic groups \(G=\mathrm{Sp}(n,\mathbb{R})\) and for the exceptional groups \(G=E_{6(-14)}\) and \(E_{7(-25)}\). This present paper deals with the exceptional group \(G=G_{2(2)}\) by first obtaining some general criteria for the existence of discretely decomposable restrictions and secondly classifying all subgroups of automorphisms of \(G\) isomorphic to \((\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z})^n\) for some \(n\in\mathbb{N}\) and not containing any Cartan involution. Since the dimension of \(G\) is rather small, such subgroups only exist for \(n=1\) and \(n=2\) and they are unique up to conjugation.