Determinantal Ideals and the Canonical Commutation Relations: Classically or Quantized

Abstract

We construct homomorphic images of $$su(n,n)^{{\mathbb {C}}}$$ in Weyl Algebras $${{\mathcal {H}}}_{2nr}$$ . More precisely, and using the Bernstein filtration of $${{\mathcal {H}}}_{2nr}$$ , $$su(n,n)^{{\mathbb {C}}}$$ is mapped into degree 2 elements with the negative non-compact root spaces being mapped into second order creation operators. Using the Fock representation of $${{\mathcal {H}}}_{2nr}$$ , these homomorphisms give all unitary highest weight representations of $$su(n,n)^{{\mathbb {C}}}$$ thus reconstructing the Kashiwara–Vergne List for the Segal–Shale–Weil representation. Using an idea from the derivation of the their list, we construct a homomorphism of $$u(r)^{{\mathbb {C}}}$$ into $${{\mathcal {H}}}_{2nr}$$ whose image commutes with the image of $$su(n,n)^{{\mathbb {C}}}$$ , and vice versa. This gives the multiplicities. The construction also gives an easy proof that the ideal of $$(r+1)\times (r+1)$$ minors is prime. Here, of course, $$r\le n-1$$ and for a fixed such r, the space of any irreducible representation of $$su(n,n)^{{\mathbb {C}}}$$ is annihilated by this ideal. As a consequence, these representations can be realized in spaces of solutions to Maxwell type equations. We actually go one step further and determine exactly for which representations from our list there is a non-trivial homomorphism between generalized Verma modules, thereby revealing, by duality, exactly which covariant differential operators have unitary null spaces. We prove the analogous results for $${{\mathcal {U}}}_q(su(n,n)^{{\mathbb {C}}})$$ . The Weyl Algebras are replaced by the Hayashi–Weyl Algebras $${{\mathcal {H}}}{{\mathcal {W}}}_{2nr}$$ and the Fock space by a q-Fock space. Further, determinants are replaced by q-determinants, and a homomorphism of $${{\mathcal {U}}}_q(u(r)^{{\mathbb {C}}})$$ into $${{\mathcal {H}}}{{\mathcal {W}}}_{2nr}$$ is constructed with analogous properties. For this purpose a Drinfeld Double is used. We mention one difference: The quantized negative non-compact root spaces, while still of degree 2, are no longer given entirely by second order creation operators.