Orbit closures in the enhanced nilpotent cone (Q936613)

The authors study the orbits of \(G=\text{GL}(V)\) in the enhanced cone \(V\times{\mathcal N}\), where \({\mathcal N}\) is the cone of nilpotent endomorphisms of \(V\). It is proved that these orbits are parametrized by bipartitions \((\nu,\mu)\) of \(n\), where \(n=\dim V\). The orbit \({\mathcal O}_{\nu;\mu}\) has dimension \(n^2-b(\nu,\mu)\), and its point stabilizers are connected. Moreover, the orbit closure ordering corresponds to a natural partial order on bipartitions. The local intersection cohomology of the orbit closures is given by certain bipartition analogues of Kostka polynomials, defined by Shoji. A connection with Kato's exotic nilpotent cone in type C is established, proving that the closure ordering is the same, and conjecturing that the intersection cohomology is the same but with the degree doubled. A corrigendum has been published in Adv. Math. 228, No. 5, 2984--2988 (2011; Zbl 1225.14040).