Ghost distributions on supersymmetric spaces I: Koszul induced superspaces, branching, and the full ghost centre

Abstract

Given a Lie superalgebra $\mathfrak{g}$, Gorelik defined the anticentre $\mathcal{A}$ of its enveloping algebra, which consists of certain elements that square to the center. We seek to generalize and enrich the anticentre to the context of supersymmetric pairs $(\mathfrak{g},\mathfrak{k})$, or more generally supersymmetric spaces $G/K$. We define certain invariant distributions on $G/K$, which we call ghost distributions, and which in some sense are induced from invariant distributions on $G_0/K_0$. Ghost distributions, and in particular their Harish-Chandra polynomials, give information about branching from $G$ to a symmetric subgroup $K'$ which is related (and sometimes conjugate) to $K$. We discuss the case of $G\times G/G$ for an arbitrary quasireductive supergroup $G$, where our results prove the existence of a polynomial which determines projectivity of irreducible $G$-modules. Finally, a generalization of Gorelik's ghost centre is defined called the full ghost centre, $\mathcal{Z}_{full}$. For type I basic Lie superalgebras $\mathfrak{g}$ we fully describe $\mathcal{Z}_{full}$, and prove that if $\mathfrak{g}$ contains an internal grading operator, $\mathcal{Z}_{full}$ consists exactly of those elements in $\mathcal{U}\mathfrak{g}$ acting by $\mathbb{Z}$-graded constants on every finite-dimensional irreducible representation.