The action of the Weyl group on the E₈ root system

DOI10.1007/S00373-021-02315-8MaRDI QIDQ2053670zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Rosa Winter, Ronald van Luijk

Publication date 30 November 2021

Published in Graphs and Combinatorics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.06945

zbMATH Keywords

\(E_8\) root polytope\(E_8\) root systemaction of the Weyl group

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Combinatorial aspects of groups and algebras (05E16) Representations of Lie algebras and Lie superalgebras, algebraic theory (weights) (17B10) Root systems (17B22) Semisimple Lie groups and their representations (22E46)

Abstract: Let $Gamma$ be the graph on the roots of the $E_8$ root system, where any two distinct vertices $e$ and $f$ are connected by an edge with color equal to the inner product of $e$ and $f$. For any set $c$ of colors, let $Gamm{a}_c$ be the subgraph of $Gamma$ consisting of all the $240$ vertices, and all the edges whose color lies in $c$. We consider cliques, i.e., complete subgraphs, of $Gamma$ that are either monochromatic, or of size at most $3$, or a maximal clique in $Gamm{a}_c$ for some color set $c$, or whose vertices are the vertices of a face of the $E_8$ root polytope. We prove that, apart from two exceptions, two such cliques are conjugate under the automorphism group of $Gamma$ if and only if they are isomorphic as colored graphs. Moreover, for an isomorphism $f$ from one such clique $K$ to another, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for $f$ to extend to an automorphism of $Gamma$, in terms of the restrictions of $f$ to certain special subgraphs of $K$ of size at most 7.

Review text

The center object studied in the paper is the action of the Weyl group \(W\) on the \(E_8\) root system. It is motivated by the connection to del Pezzo surfaces [\textit{R. van Luijk} and \textit{R. Winter}, ``Concurrent lines on del Pezzo surfaces of degree one, Preprint, \url{arXiv:1906.03162}]. Let \(\Gamma\) be the colored graph on the \(E_8\) root system where the color of an edge is the inner product of its vertices. A clique of \(\Gamma\) is a complete colored subgraph of \(\Gamma\). It is known that if two cliques in \(\Gamma\) are conjugated under the action of \(W\) then they are isomorphic. However, the inverse conclusion is not true in general. \textit{E. B. Dynkin} and \textit{A. N. Minchenko} [Transform. Groups 15, No. 4, 813--841 (2010; Zbl 1281.17012)] studied the bases of a subsystem of \(E_8\) and classified the isomorphic classes of these bases such that the inverse statement is valid. Such bases are called normal bases. They also determined when a homomorphism of two bases of subsystem extends to a homomorphism of the whole system. The main results of the paper are extensions of [loc. cit.]. More precisely, they extend normal bases in [loc. cit.] to a larger set of cliques in \(\Gamma\), numbered by \(I, II, III, IV\), such that the invert conclusion is true (Theorem 1). They also give conditions for an isomorphism of two cliques of new types to extend to an automorphism of the whole system (Theorem 2). The idea of the work comes from [loc. cit.]. The structure of the paper is as follows: Section 2 reviews root system \(E_8\) and the connection with del Pezzo surfaces. Section 3 and 4 reviews the result on the facets of \(E_8\) root polytope, cliques of type \(I, III\). Section 5 classifies cliques of type \(IV\). Section 6 proves the main theorems.

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Cited in

(5)

• The diameters graph of the root system \(E_8\) is uniquely geometrisable
• A relation between the Weyl group \(W(E_8)\) and eight-line arrangements on a real projective plane
• Concurrent lines on del Pezzo surfaces of degree one
• Torsion points and concurrent exceptional curves on del Pezzo surfaces of degree one
• Hybrid spherical designs

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• Magma

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