Abelian ideals of a Borel subalgebra and root systems

Abstract

Let $g$ be a simple Lie algebra and $Ab$ the poset of non-trivial abelian ideals of a fixed Borel subalgebra of $g$. In 2003 (IMRN, no.35, 1889--1913), we constructed a partition of $Ab$ into the subposets $A{b}_{\mu }$, parameterised by the long positive roots of $g$, and established some properties of these subposets. In this note, we show that this partition is compatible with intersections, relate it to the Kostant-Peterson parameterisation of abelian ideals and to the centralisers of abelian ideals. We also prove that the poset of positive roots of $g$ is a join-semilattice.

17 pages, final version; to appear in J. Europ. Math. Soc