Ad-Nilpotent Ideals of a Parabolic Subalgebra

Abstract

We extend the results of Cellini-Papi on the characterizations of nilpotent and abelian ideals of a Borel subalgebra to parabolic subalgebras of a simple Lie algebra. These characterizations are given in terms of elements of the affine Weyl group and faces of alcoves. In the case of a parabolic subalgebra of a classical Lie algebra, we give formulas for the number of these ideals.