The nilpotent cone for classical Lie superalgebras

Abstract

In this paper the authors introduce an analogue of the nilpotent cone, N {\mathcal N} , for a classical Lie superalgebra, g {\mathfrak g} , that generalizes the definition for the nilpotent cone for semisimple Lie algebras. For a classical simple Lie superalgebra, g = g 0 ¯ ⊕ g 1 ¯ {\mathfrak g}={\mathfrak g}_{\bar 0}\oplus {\mathfrak g}_{\bar 1} with Lie G 0 ¯ = g 0 ¯ \text {Lie }G_{\bar 0}={\mathfrak g}_{\bar 0} , it is shown that there are finitely many G 0 ¯ G_{\bar 0} -orbits on N {\mathcal N} . Later the authors prove that the Duflo-Serganova commuting variety, X {\mathcal X} , is contained in N {\mathcal N} for any classical simple Lie superalgebra. Consequently, our finiteness result generalizes and extends the work of Duflo-Serganova on the commuting variety. Further applications are given at the end of the paper.