Ideals of homomorphic images of the enveloping algebra of the Witt algebra

Abstract

Let $W_{\geq -1} = \mathbb{C}[t]\partial$ and $W = \mathbb{C}[t, t^{-1}]\partial$ be the Witt algebra of algebraic vector fields on $\mathbb{C}$ and $\mathbb{C}^*$ respectively. In this paper, we make significant progress toward the open conjecture that the enveloping algebras $\mathrm{U}(W_{\geq -1})$ and $\mathrm{U}(W)$ satisfy the ascending chain condition (ACC) on two-sided ideals. We show that all homomorphic images of $\mathrm{U}(W_{\geq -1})$ and $\mathrm{U}(W)$ under the family of ``orbit homomorphisms'' of arbitrary Gelfand-Kirillov dimension satisfy ACC on ideals. These orbit homomorphisms were the key ingredient allowing us to ``lift'' the Dixmier map from finite-dimensional solvable settings to infinite-dimensional settings of the Witt and Virasoro algebras in our recent work [Pham, 2025, arXiv:2504.14670]. As a result, we completely classify the prime and primitive spectra of these homomorphic images. As these images approximate $\mathrm{U}(W_{\geq -1})$ better as their GK-dimension increases, this classification sheds new light on the two-sided and prime ideal structures of $\mathrm{U}(W_{\geq -1})$. Finally, we discuss several applications of our results to the Dixmier map for $W_{\geq -1}$.