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

Stratifications with respect to actions of real reductive groups

We study the action of a real reductive group G on a real submanifold X of a K"ahler manifold Z. We suppose that the action of G extends holomorphically to an action of a complex reductive group and is Hamiltonian with respect to a compatible maximal compact subgroup of the complex reductive group. There is a corresponding gradient map obtained from a Cartan decomposition of G. We obtain a Morse like function on X. Associated to its critical points are various sets of semistable points which we study in great detail. In particular, we have G-stable submanifolds of X which are called pre-strata. In case that the gradient map is proper, the pre-strata form a decomposition of X and in case that X is compact they are the strata of a Morse type stratification of X. Our results are generalizations of results of Kirwan obtained in the case that X=Z is compact and the group itself is complex reductive.Comment: 29 pages, minor errors corrected, referee suggestions implemente

COADJOINT ORBITOPES

We study coadjoint orbitopes, i.e. convex hulls of coadjoint orbits of a compact Lie group. We show that all the faces of such an orbitope are exposed. The face structure is studied by means of the momentum map and it is shown that every face is again a coadjoint orbitope. Up to conjugation the faces are completely determined by the momentum polytope and can be described in a simple way in terms of root data. Finally we consider the complex geometry of the coadjoint orbit and we prove that the submanifolds of the orbit that are extreme sets of a face are exactly the closed orbits of parabolic subgroups