A polytope combinatorics for semisimple groups

Abstract

Mirkovic and Vilonen discovered a canonical basis of algebraic cycles for the intersection homology of (the closures of the strata of) the loop Grassmannian. The moment map images of these varieties are a collection of polytopes, and they may be used to compute weight multiplicities and tensor product multiplicities for representations of a semisimple group. The polytopes are explicitly described for a few low rank groups.