Cycles of Bott-Samelson type for taut representations

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Abstract: Bott and Samuelson constructed explicit cycles representing a basis of the Z_2-homology of the orbits of variationally complete representations of compact Lie groups. As a consequence, all those orbits are taut. We were able to show that an irreducible representation of a compact Lie group, all of whose orbits are taut, is either variationally complete or it is one of the following orthogonal representations (n bigger than or equal to 2): the (standard) x_R (spin) representation of SO(2)xSpin(9); or the (standard) x_C (standard) representation of U(2)xSp(n); or the (standard)^3 x_ H (standard) representation of SU(2)xSp(n). In this paper we will show how to adapt the construction of the cycles of Bott and Samelson to the orbits of these three representations. As a result, they also admit explicit cycles representing a basis of their Z_2-homology and, in particular, this provides another proof of their tautness.


A representation \(\rho: G\to\text O(V)\) of a connected compact Lie group \(G\) is called taut if the Morse inequalities for the distance function to any orbit of \(G\) in \(V\) are in fact equalities. The well known examples of taut irreducible representations are the isotropy representations of irreducible symmetric spaces. It was shown by the authors (Preprint, 2000), that, besides these examples, there exist only the following ones: \(G = \text{SO}(2)\times\text{SO}(9), \rho = \rho_1\otimes_{\mathbb R}\rho_2; G = \text U(2)\times\text{Sp}(n), \rho = \rho_1\otimes_{\mathbb C}\rho_2; G = \text{SU}(2)\times\text{Sp}(n), \rho = \rho_1^3\otimes_{\mathbb H}\rho_2\), where \(\rho_1\) and \(\rho_2\) are the standard representations of the first and of the second factor, respectively. In the paper, a new proof of tautness of these exceptional representations is contained, giving explicit cycles which represent the \(\mathbb Z_2\)-homology of their orbits. It is also proved that these representations are not variationally complete.











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