HIGHER DEFORMATIONS OF LIE ALGEBRA REPRESENTATIONS II

Steinberg’s tensor product theorem shows that for semisimple algebraic groups, the study of irreducible representations of higher Frobenius kernels reduces to the study of irreducible representations of the first Frobenius kernel. In the preceding paper in this series, deforming the distribution algebra of a higher Frobenius kernel yielded a family of deformations called higher reduced enveloping algebras. In this paper, we prove that the Steinberg decomposition can be similarly deformed, allowing us to reduce representation theoretic questions about these algebras to questions about reduced enveloping algebras. We use this to derive structural results about modules over these algebras. Separately, we also show that many of the results in the preceding paper hold without an assumption of reductivity.

Support varieties for rational representations

We introduce support varieties for rational representations of a linear algebraic group $G$ of exponential type over an algebraically closed field $k$ of characteristic $p>0$. These varieties are closed subspaces of the space $V(G)$ of all 1-parameter subgroups of $G$. The functor $M\mapsto V(G)_{M}$ satisfies many of the standard properties of support varieties satisfied by finite groups and other finite group schemes. Furthermore, there is a close relationship between $V(G)_{M}$ and the family of support varieties $V_{r}(G)_{M}$ obtained by restricting the $G$ action to Frobenius kernels $G_{(r)}\subset G$. These support varieties seem particularly appropriate for the investigation of infinite-dimensional rational $G$-modules.