Is the Luna stratification intrinsic?

Abstract

Let G -> \GL(V) be a finite-dimensional linear representation of a reductive linear algebraic group G on a finite-dimensional vector space V, defined over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. The categorical quotient V//G carries a natural stratification, due to D. Luna. This paper addresses the following questions: (i) Is the Luna stratification of X intrinsic? That is, does every automorphism of V//G map each stratum to another stratum? (ii) Are the individual Luna strata in X intrinsic? That is, does every automorphism of V//G maps each stratum to itself? In general, the Luna stratification is not intrinsic. Nevertheless, we give positive answers to questions (i) and (ii) for large classes of interesting representations.