ad-nilpotent ideals containing a fixed number of simple root spaces

Abstract

We give formulas for the number of ad-nilpotent ideals of a Borel subalgebra of a Lie algebra of type B or D containing a fixed number of root spaces attached to simple roots. This result solves positively a conjecture of Panyushev (cf. D. Panyushev, ad-nilpotent ideals: generators and duality, J. of Alg., to appear) and affords a complete knowledge of the above statistics for any simple Lie algebra. We also study the restriction of the above statistics to the abelian ideals of a Borel subalgebra, obtaining uniform results for any simple Lie algebra.