A generalization of Steinberg theory and an exotic moment map

TL;DR

This paper extends Steinberg's theory to symmetric pairs, introducing generalized maps from permutations to nilpotent orbits and signed Young diagrams, with geometric and combinatorial insights.

Contribution

It develops a generalized Steinberg map and an exotic moment map for symmetric pairs, linking permutations to nilpotent orbits and signed diagrams, expanding classical representation theory.

Findings

Generalized Steinberg map from partial permutations to nilpotent orbit pairs

Exotic moment map from partial permutations to signed Young diagrams

Provides geometric background and combinatorial algorithms for these maps

Abstract

For a reductive group $G$, Steinberg established a map from the Weyl group to the set of nilpotent $G$-orbits by using moment maps on double flag varieties. In particular, in the case of the general linear group, it provides a geometric interpretation of the Robinson-Schensted correspondence between permutations and pairs of standard tableaux of the same shape. We extend Steinberg's approach to the case of a symmetric pair $(G,K)$ to obtain two different maps, namely a \emph{generalized Steinberg map} and an \emph{exotic moment map}. Although the framework is general, in this paper we focus on the pair $(G,K) = (\mathrm{GL}_{2n}(\mathbb{C}), \mathrm{GL}_n(\mathbb{C}) \times \mathrm{GL}_n(\mathbb{C}))$. Then the generalized Steinberg map is a map from \emph{partial} permutations to the pairs of nilpotent orbits in $ \mathfrak{gl}_n(\mathbb{C}) $. It involves a generalization of the classical Robinson--Schensted correspondence to the case of partial permutations. The other map, the exotic moment map, establishes a combinatorial map from the set of partial permutations to that of signed Young diagrams, i.e., the set of nilpotent $K$-orbits in the Cartan space $(\mathrm{Lie}(G)/\mathrm{Lie}(K))^* $. We explain the geometric background of the theory and combinatorial algorithms which produce the above mentioned maps.