Cartan decomposition of the moment map

Abstract

We investigate a class of actions of real Lie groups on complex spaces. Using moment map techniques we establish the existence of a quotient and a version of Luna's slice theorem as well as a version of the Hilbert-Mumford criterion. A global slice theorem is proved for proper actions. We give new proofs of results of Mostow on decompositions of groups and homogeneous spaces.

27 pages