Polarization algebras and the geometry of commuting varieties

Abstract

We prove a reduced version of the Chevalley restriction conjecture on the commuting scheme posed by T.H. Chen and B.C. Ngô, extending the results of Hunziker for classical groups. In particular, we prove that for any connected reductive group, the ring of $G$-invariant functions on the commuting variety restricts to an isomorphism with the invariants of the d-fold product of a Cartan subalgebra under the Weyl group $k[\mathfrak{t}^d]^W$. The full conjecture implies that this isomorphism extends to the ring of $G$-invariants on the non-reduced commuting scheme, $k[\mathfrak{C}_{\mathfrak{g}}^d]^G$ (hence the invariant ring is nilpotent free). We then prove an analogous restriction theorem for general polar representations which we apply to resolve an important case of a conjecture posed by Bulois, C Lehn, M Lehn and Terpereau about symplectic reductions of $θ$-representations. Throughout this work, we focus on the connection between the invariant subring generated by polarizations and commutativity.