Non-discrete affine buildings and convexity

Abstract

Affine buildings are in a certain sense analogs of symmetric spaces. It is therefore natural to ask for analogs of results for symmetric spaces. We prove a version of Kostantʼs convexity theorem for thick non-discrete affine buildings. Kostant proves that the image of a certain orbit of a point x in the symmetric space under a projection onto a maximal flat is the convex hull of the Weyl group orbit of x. We obtain the same result for a projection onto an apartment in an affine building. The methods are mostly borrowed from metric geometry. Our proof makes no appeal to the automorphism group of the building. However the final result has an interesting application for groups acting nicely on non-discrete buildings, such as groups admitting a root datum with non-discrete valuation. Along the proofs we obtain that segments are contained in apartments and that certain retractions are distance diminishing.