Abstract. Based on the second author's thesis [33], in this article we provide a uniform treatment of abstract involutions of algebraic groups and of Kac-Moody groups using twin buildings, RGD systems, and twisted involutions of Coxeter groups. Notably we simultaneously generalize the double coset decompositions established in [32] and [49] for algebraic groups and in [39] for certain Kac-Moody groups, we analyze the filtration studied in [24] in the context of arbitrary involutions, and we answer a structural question on the combinatorics of involutions of twin buildings raised in [7].

Abstract. Let G be a split real Kac-Moody group of arbitrary type and let K be its maximal compact subgroup, i.e. the subgroup of elements fixed by a Cartan-Chevalley involution of G. We construct non-trivial spin covers of K, thus confirming a conjecture by Damour and Hillmann. For irreducible simply-laced diagrams and for all spherical diagrams these spin covers are two-fold central extensions of K. For more complicated irreducible diagrams these spin covers are central extensions by a finite 2-group of possibly larger cardinality. Our construction is amalgam-theoretic and makes use of the generalised spin representations of maximal compact subalgebras of split real Kac-Moody algebras studied by Hainke, Levy and the third author. Our spin covers contain what we call spin-extended Weyl groups which admit a presentation by generators and relations obtained from the one for extended Weyl groups by relaxing the condition on the generators so that only their eighth powers are required to be trivial.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract