Separating invariants of finite groups

Abstract: This paper studies separating invariants of finite groups acting on affine varieties through automorphisms. Several results, proved by Serre, Dufresne, Kac-Watanabe and Gordeev, and Jeffries and Dufresne exist that relate properties of the invariant ring or a separating subalgebra to properties of the group action. All these results are limited to the case of linear actions on vector spaces. The goal of this paper is to lift this restriction by extending these results to the case of (possibly) non-linear actions on affine varieties. Under mild assumptions on the variety and the group action, we prove that polynomial separating algebras can exist only for reflection groups. The benefit of this gain in generality is demonstrated by an application to the semigroup problem in multiplicative invariant theory. Then we show that separating algebras which are complete intersections in a certain codimension can exist only for 2-reflection groups. Finally we prove that a separating set of size

n + k - 1

(where

n

is the dimension of

X

) can exist only for

k

-reflection groups. Several examples show that most of the assumptions on the group action and the variety that we make cannot be dropped.

Review text

Let \(G\) be a finite group and let \(X\) be a not necessarily irreducible affine variety defined over an algebraically closed field \(K\). The main purpose of this article is to investigate the separating invariants of an algebraic action \(G\times X\rightarrow X\). Two important notions that play fundamental roles in the paper are the ``\(k\)-reflections and the ``separating sets. Let us introduce the latter notion first: A subset \(S\) of the ring of invariants \(K[X]^G\) is called separating if for all \(x,y\in X\) the following implication holds true: if \(f(x) \neq f(y)\) for some \(f\in K[X]^G\), then there exists \(g\in S\) such that \(g(x) \neq g(y)\). The infimum of the set of cardinalities of separating subsets is denoted by \(\gamma_{\text{sep}}\). An element \(\sigma \in G\) is called a \(k\)-reflection if the codimension of its fixed space, \(X^\sigma\) in \(X\), is at most \(k\). Finally, a reflection is a 1-reflection. The main results of the article are as follows: {\parindent=0.7cm\begin{itemize}\item[1.] Theorem 2.4: Let \(X\) be a connected Cohen-Macaulay affine \(G\)-variety with \(\gamma_{\text{sep}}=n\). If \(G\) is generated by elements having a fixed point, then \(G\) is generated by reflections. \item[2.] Theorem 2.8: Let \(L\) be a lattice on which \(G\) acts by automorphisms. If the ring of invariants \(K[L]^G\) is isomorphic to a mixed Laurent polynomial ring then \(G\) is generated by reflections. Here, a mixed Laurent polynomial ring is a ring of the form \(K[x_1^{\pm 1},\dots, x_k^{\pm 1},x_{k+1},\dots, x_n]\) for some algebraically independent variables \(x_1,\dots,x_n\). \item[3.] Theorem 3.13: Let \(X\) be a connected normal affine \(G\)-variety such that \(X^G\neq \emptyset\). If there exists a finitely generated `separating subalgebra' \(A\subset K[X]^G\) such that \(K[X]^G\) is a finite \(A\)-module, and that \(A\) is a complete intersection in codimension \(2+\text{cid}(A)\), where \(\text{cid}(A)\) denotes the `complete intersection defect of \(A\)', then \(G\) is generated by 2-reflections. \item[4.] Theorem 4.5: Let \(X\) be a connected normal affine \(G\)-variety, where \(G\) is generated by elements having a fixed point in \(X\). If \(X\) is \(n\)-dimensional and \(\gamma_{\text{sep}} = n+k-1\), then \(G\) is generated by \(k\)-reflections. \end{itemize}}

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