Higher secant varieties of the minimal adjoint orbit

Abstract

We try to write (generic) elements of classical simple Lie algebras as sums of as few elements of the orbit C of long root vectors as possible. If the Lie algebra in question is sl_n or sp_n, then C consists of all rank 1 matrices in the Lie algebra, and an element of rank k is the sum of k elements of C. If, on the other hand, the Lie algebra is o_n, then C consists of all rank 2 matrices with square zero, and the situation is much more complicated. We explicitly describe, in this case as well, the closure of the set of all sums of k elements of C, also known as the (k-1)st secant variety of C.