The Harish-Chandra isomorphism for supersymmetric spaces and ghost distributions

Abstract

We prove the Harish-Chandra isomorphism theorem for supersymmetric spaces, describing the polynomial algebra of eigenvalues of invariant differential operators. The polynomials obtained satisfy novel invariance conditions, which remain somewhat mysterious. We also prove the Harish-Chandra isomorphism for ghost distributions, which satisfy a `square root' of the invariance conditions coming from invariant differential operators. All proofs are algebraic, and rely on a rank-one reduction argument and the Chevalley restriction theorem.