Is the Luna stratification intrinsic?

Abstract

Let G -> \GL(V) be a finite-dimensional linear representation of a reductive linear algebraic group G on a finite-dimensional vector space V, defined over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. The categorical quotient V//G carries a natural stratification, due to D. Luna. This paper addresses the following questions: (i) Is the Luna stratification of X intrinsic? That is, does every automorphism of V//G map each stratum to another stratum? (ii) Are the individual Luna strata in X intrinsic? That is, does every automorphism of V//G maps each stratum to itself? In general, the Luna stratification is not intrinsic. Nevertheless, we give positive answers to questions (i) and (ii) for large classes of interesting representations.

27 pages