The centralisers of nilpotent elements in classical Lie algebras

Abstract: The index of a finite-dimensional Lie algebra

g

is the minimum of dimensions of stabilisers

g_{a} l p h a

of elements

a l p h a i n g^{*}

. Let

g

be a reductive Lie algebra and

z (x)

a centraliser of a nilpotent element

x i n g

. Elashvili has conjectured that the index of the centraliser

z (x)

equals the index of

g

, i.e., the rank of

g

. Here Elashvili's conjecture is proved for reductive Lie algebras of classical type. It is shown that in cases

g = g l_{n}

and

g = s p_{2 n}

the coadjoint action of

z (x)

has a generic stabiliser. Also, we give an example of a nilpotent element

x i n s o_{8}

such that the coadjoint action of

z (x)

has no generic stabiliser.

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