Highest weight modules to first order

Gurbir Dhillon, Apoorva Khare

Published 2016-06-30Version 1

We give positive formulas for the weights of every simple highest weight module $L(\lambda)$ over an arbitrary Kac-Moody algebra. Under a mild condition on the highest weight, we express the weights of $L(\lambda)$ as an alternating sum similar to the Weyl-Kac character formula. For general highest weight modules, we answer questions of Bump and Lepowsky on weights, a question of Brion on convex hulls of the weights, and a question of Brion on the corresponding $D$-modules. Many of these results are new in finite type. We prove similar assertions for highest weight modules over a symmetrizable quantum group. These results are obtained as elaborations of two ideas. First, the following data attached to a highest weight module are equivalent: (i) its integrability, (ii) the convex hull of its weights, and (iii) when a localization theorem is available, its behavior on certain codimension 1 Schubert cells. Second, in favorable circumstances the above data are equivalent to (iv) its weights.