Spherical roots of spherical varieties

Brion proved that the valuation cone of a complex spherical variety is a fundamental domain for a finite reflection group, called the little Weyl group. The principal goal of this paper is to generalize this fundamental theorem to fields of characteristic unequal to 2. We also prove a weaker version which holds in characteristic 2, as well. Our main tool is a generalization of Akhiezer's classification of spherical rank-1-varieties.Comment: v1; 19 pages; v2: 19 pages, reformatted to LaTeX, slightly expanded, a couple of minor errors corrected; v3: 19 pages, minor modifications, final versio

Convexity of Hamiltonian manifolds

Let K be a connected Lie group and M a Hamiltonian K-manifold. In this paper, we introduce the notion of convexity of M. It implies that the momentum image is convex, the moment map has connected fibers, and the total moment map is open onto its image. Conversely, the three properties above imply convexity. We show that most Hamiltonian manifolds occuring "in nature" are convex (e.g., if M is compact, complex algebraic, or a cotangent bundle). Moreover, every Hamiltonian manifold is locally convex. This is an expanded version of section 2 of my paper dg-ga/9712010 on Weyl groups of Hamiltonian manifolds.Comment: 12 pages, to appear in J. Lie Theor

Graded cofinite rings of differential operators

We classify subalgebras of a ring of differential operators which are big in the sense that the extension of associated graded rings is finite. We show that these subalgebras correspond, up to automorphisms, to uniformly ramified finite morphisms. This generalizes a theorem of Levasseur-Stafford on the generators of the invariants of a Weyl algebra under a finite group.Comment: v1: 9 pages; v2: 22 pages, completely rewritten, main theorem fixed, applications added; v3: 23 pages, references added, minor correction

Functoriality properties of the dual group

Let $G$ be a connected reductive group. In a previous paper, arxiv:1702.08264, is was shown that the dual group $G^\vee_X$ attached to a $G$-variety $X$ admits a natural homomorphism with finite kernel to the Langlands dual group $G^\vee$ of $G$. Here, we prove that the dual group is functorial in the following sense: if there is a dominant $G$-morphism $X\to Y$ or an injective $G$-morphism $Y\to X$ then there is a canonical homomorphism $G^\vee_Y\to G^\vee_X$ which is compatible with the homomorphisms to $G^\vee$.Comment: v1:14 pages; v2: 16 pages, changed Rem. 2.3, Rem. 2.9, proof of Thm. 3.2; v3: 2 typos correcte

A connectedness property of algebraic moment maps

Let a connected reductive group G act on the smooth connected variety X. The cotangent bundle of X is a Hamiltonian G-variety. We show that its "total moment map" has connected fibers. This is an expanded version of section 6 of my paper dg-ga/9712010 on Weyl groups of Hamiltonian manifolds.Comment: 15 page