Counting components of the null-cone on tuples. (Q882628)

Let \(G\) be a connected reductive linear algebraic group and \(\rho\colon G\to\text{GL}(M)\) a rational representation of \(G\). In this paper the author studies the diagonal action of \(G\) on \(M^p\). An element of \(M^p\) is called `nilpotent' if zero is in the closure of its \(G\)-orbit; the set of nilpotent elements in \(M^p\) forms a \(G\)-stable closed cone called the `null-cone' in \(M^p\). Let \(c(M^p)\) denote the number of irreducible components of this null-cone. The main result of this paper is an algorithm to calculate \(\lim_{p\to\infty}c(M^p)\) given the weight system of \(M\). The fact that \(c(M^p)\) stabilizes at some finite value of \(p\) is shown by \textit{H. Kraft} and \textit{N. R. Wallach} [in Pac. J. Math. 224, No. 1, 119-139 (2006; Zbl 1124.20030)]; they also provide a characterization of the null-cone which is central to the construction of the algorithm. The author goes on to apply the algorithm to show that if \(G\) is semisimple and the characteristic is zero, only a few \(G\)-modules \(M\) have the property that \(c(M^p)\) is small for all \(p\). A conjecture is also presented concerning the question of when \(c(M^p)=1\) for all \(p\).