University of Hertfordshire

Quasitriangular coideal subalgebras of $U_q(\mathfrak{g})$ in terms of generalized Satake diagrams

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

Let $\mathfrak{g}$ be a finite-dimensional semisimple complex Lie algebra and $\theta$ an involutive automorphism of $\mathfrak{g}$. According to Letzter, Kolb and Balagovi\'c the fixed-point subalgebra $\mathfrak{k} = \mathfrak{g}^\theta$ has a quantum counterpart $B$, a coideal subalgebra of the Drinfeld-Jimbo quantum group $U_q(\mathfrak{g})$ possessing a universal K-matrix $\mathcal{K}$. The objects $\theta$, $\mathfrak{k}$, $B$ and $\mathcal{K}$ can all be described in terms of combinatorial datum, a Satake diagram. In the present work we extend this construction to generalized Satake diagrams, objects first considered by Heck. A generalized Satake diagram naturally defines a semisimple automorphism $\theta$ of $\mathfrak{g}$ restricting to the standard Cartan subalgebra $\mathfrak{h}$ as an involution. It also defines a subalgebra $\mathfrak{k}\subset \mathfrak{g}$ satisfying $\mathfrak{k} \cap \mathfrak{h} = \mathfrak{h}^\theta$, but not necessarily a fixed-point subalgebra. The subalgebra $\mathfrak{k}$ can be quantized to a coideal subalgebra of $U_q(\mathfrak{g})$ endowed with a universal K-matrix in the sense of Kolb and Balagovi\'c. We conjecture that all such coideal subalgebras of $U_q(\mathfrak{g})$ arise from generalized Satake diagrams in this way.