Affine hyperplane arrangements and Jordan classes

Abstract

We study the geometry of the stratification induced by an affine hyperplane arrangement H on the quotient of a complex affine space by the action of a discrete group preserving H. We give conditions ensuring normality or normality in codimension 1 of strata. As an application, we provide the list of those categorical quotients of closures of Jordan classes and of sheets in all complex simple algebraic groups that are normal. In the simply connected case, we show that normality of such a quotient is equivalent to its smoothness.

Major revision. More details added in some remarks and proofs. Proposition 10.10 corrected