Homogeneous bundles and the first eigenvalue of symmetric spaces

We prove the stability of the Gieseker point of an irreducible homogeneous bundle over a rational homogeneous space. As an application we get a sharp upper estimate for the first eigenvalue of the Laplacian of an arbitrary Kaehler metric on a compact Hermitian symmetric spaces of ABCD--type.Comment: Some corrections suggested by the referee. To appear on Annales de l'Institut Fourie

Remarks on the abelian convexity theorem

This note contains some observations on abelian convexity theorems. Convexity along an orbit is established in a very general setting using Kempf-Ness functions. This is applied to give short proofs of the Atiyah-Guillemin-Sternberg theorem and of abelian convexity for the gradient map in the case of a real analytic submanifold of complex projective space. Finally we give an application to the action on the probability measures.Comment: To appear on Proceedings of the American Mathematical Societ

Stability of measures on K\"ahler manifolds

Let $(M,\omega)$ be a K\"ahler manifold and let $K$ be a compact group that acts on $M$ in a Hamiltonian fashion. We study the action of $K^\mathbb{C}$ on probability measures on $M$. First of all we identify an abstract setting for the momentum mapping and give numerical criteria for stability, semi-stability and polystability. Next we apply this setting to the action of $K^\mathbb{C}$ on measures. We get various stability criteria for measures on K\"ahler manifolds. The same circle of ideas gives a very general surjectivity result for a map originally studied by Hersch and Bourguignon-Li-Yau.Comment: Final version. To appear on Advances in Mathematic

Shimura varieties in the Torelli locus via Galois coverings

Given a family of Galois coverings of the projective line we give a simple sufficient condition ensuring that the closure of the image of the family via the period mapping is a special (or Shimura) subvariety in A_g. By a computer program we get the list of all families in genus up to 8 satisfying our condition. There is no family in genus 8, all of them are in genus at most 7. These examples are related to a conjecture of Oort. Among them we get the cyclic examples constructed by various authors (Shimura, Mostow, De Jong-Noot, Rohde, Moonen and others) and the abelian non-cyclic examples found by Moonen-Oort. We get 7 new non-abelian examples.Comment: Final version. To appear on Intenational Mathematics Research Notice

Polar orbitopes

We study polar orbitopes, i.e. convex hulls of orbits of a polar representation of a compact Lie group. The face structure is studied by means of the gradient momentum map and it is shown that every face is exposed and is again a polar orbitope. Up to conjugation the faces are completely determined by the momentum polytope. There is a tight relation with parabolic subgroups: the set of extreme points of a face is the closed orbit of a parabolic subgroup of G and for any parabolic subgroup the closed orbit is of this form.Comment: 24 pages. To appear on Communications in Analysis and Geometr