A Bernstein Property of a Class of Fourth Order Complex Partial Differential Equations

Let ${f:\Omega \rightarrow \mathbb{R}}$ be a smooth function on a domain   ${\Omega \subset \mathbb{C}^n}$ with its Hessian matrix ${\left( \frac{\partial^2 f}{\partial z^i \partial\bar{z}^j}\right)}$ positive Hermitian. In this paper, we investigate a class of partial differential equations $$\Delta \ln \det (f_{i\bar{j}}) = \beta \;\| \text{grad} \ln \det (f_{i\bar{j}}) \|^2, $$ where Δ and ${\| \cdot \|}$ are the Laplacian and tensor norm, respectively, with respect to the metric ${G = \sum f_{i\bar{j}} \,dz^i \otimes d\bar{z}^j}$ , and β > 1 is some real constant depending on the dimension n. We prove that the above PDEs have a Bernstein property when the metric G is complete, provided that ${\det (f_{i\bar{j}})}$ and the Ricci curvature are bounded.     

Howe correspondence and Springer correspondence for real reductive dual pairs

We consider a real reductive dual pair (G′, G) of type I, with rank ${({\rm G}^{\prime}) \leq {\rm rank(G)}}$ . Given a nilpotent coadjoint orbit ${\mathcal{O}^{\prime} \subseteq \mathfrak{g}^{{\prime}{*}}}$ , let ${\mathcal{O}^{\prime}_\mathbb{C} \subseteq \mathfrak{g}^{{\prime}{*}}_\mathbb{C}}$ denote the complex orbit containing ${\mathcal{O}^{\prime}}$ . Under some condition on the partition λ′ parametrizing ${\mathcal{O}^{\prime}}$ , we prove that, if λ is the partition obtained from λ by adding a column on the very left, and ${\mathcal{O}}$ is the nilpotent coadjoint orbit parametrized by λ, then ${\mathcal{O}_\mathbb{C}= \tau (\tau^{\prime -1}(\mathcal{O}_\mathbb{C}^{\prime}))}$ , where ${\tau, \tau^{\prime}}$ are the moment maps. Moreover, if ${chc(\hat\mu_{\mathcal{O}^{\prime}}) \neq 0}$ , where chc is the infinitesimal version of the Cauchy-Harish-Chandra integral, then the Weyl group representation attached by Wallach to ${\mu_{\mathcal{O}^{\prime}}}$ with corresponds to ${\mathcal{O}_\mathbb{C}}$ via the Springer correspondence.     

The Left Hilbert BVP for h-Regular Functions in Clifford Analysis

Consider the real Clifford algebra ${\mathbb{R}_{0,n}}$ generated by e ₁, e ₂, . . . , e _n satisfying ${e_{i}e_{j} + e_{j}e_{i} = -2\delta_{ij} , i, j = 1, 2, . . . , n, e_{0}}$ is the unit element. Let ${\Omega}$ be an open set in ${\mathbb{R}^{n+1}}$ . u(x) is called an h-regular function in ${\Omega}$ if $$D_{x}u(x) + \widehat{u}(x)h = 0, \quad\quad (0.1)$$ where ${D_x = \sum\limits_{i=0}^{n} e_{i}\partial_{xi}}$ is the Dirac operator in ${\mathbb{R}^{n+1}}$ , and ${\widehat{u}(x) = \sum \limits_{A} (-1)^{\#A}u_{A}(x)e_{A}, \#A}$ denotes the cardinality of A and ${h = \sum\limits_{k=0}^{n} h_{k}e_{k}}$ is a constant paravector. In this paper, we mainly consider the Hilbert boundary value problem (BVP) for h-regular functions in ${\mathbb{R}_{+}^{n+1}}$ .     

Lax embeddings of the Hermitian unital

In this paper, we prove that every lax generalized Veronesean embedding of the Hermitian unital ${\mathcal{U}}$ of ${\mathsf{PG}(2,\mathbb{L}), \mathbb{L}}$ a quadratic extension of the field ${\mathbb{K}}$ and ${|\mathbb{K}| \geq 3}$ , in a ${\mathsf{PG}(d,\mathbb{F})}$ , with ${\mathbb{F}}$ any field and d ≥ 7, such that disjoint blocks span disjoint subspaces, is the standard Veronesean embedding in a subgeometry ${\mathsf{PG}(7,\mathbb{K}^{\prime})}$ of ${\mathsf{PG}(7,\mathbb{F})}$ (and d = 7) or it consists of the projection from a point ${p \in \mathcal{U}}$ of ${\mathcal{U}{\setminus} \{p\}}$ from a subgeometry ${\mathsf{PG}(7,\mathbb{K}^{\prime})}$ of ${\mathsf{PG}(7,\mathbb{F})}$ into a hyperplane ${\mathsf{PG}(6,\mathbb{K}^{\prime})}$ . In order to do so, when ${|\mathbb{K}| >3 }$ we strongly use the linear representation of the affine part of ${\mathcal{U}}$ (the line at infinity being secant) as the affine part of the generalized quadrangle ${\mathsf{Q}(4,\mathbb{K})}$ (the solid at infinity being non-singular); when ${|\mathbb{K}| =3}$ , we use the connection of ${\mathcal{U}}$ with the generalized hexagon of order 2.     

Quasilinear elliptic equations in \mathbb{R }^{N} via variational methods and Orlicz-Sobolev embeddings

In this paper we prove the existence of a nontrivial non-negative radial solution for the quasilinear elliptic problem $$\begin{aligned} \left\{ \begin{array}{l@{\quad }l} -\nabla \cdot \left[\phi ^{\prime }(|\nabla u|^2)\nabla u \right] +|u|^{\alpha -2}u =|u|^{s-2} u,&x\in \mathbb{R }^{N},\\ u(x) \rightarrow 0, \quad \text{ as} |x|\rightarrow \infty , \end{array} \right. \end{aligned}$$ where $N\ge 2, \phi (t)$ behaves like $t^{q/2}$ for small $t$ and $t^{p/2}$ for large $t, 1< p<q<N, 1<\alpha \le p^* q^{\prime }/p^{\prime }$ and $\max \{q,\alpha \}< s<p^*,$ being $p^*=\frac{pN}{N-p}$ and $p^{\prime }$ and $q^{\prime }$ the conjugate exponents, respectively, of $p$ and $q$ . Our aim is to approach the problem variationally by using the tools of critical points theory in an Orlicz-Sobolev space. A multiplicity result is also given.     

On {\mathbb{F}_q} -Rational Structure of Nilpotent Orbits in the Witt Algebra

Let ${\mathfrak{g}=W_1}$ be the p-dimensional Witt algebra over an algebraically closed field ${k=\overline{\mathbb{F}}_q}$ , where p > 3 is a prime and q is a power of p. Let G be the automorphism group of ${\mathfrak{g}}$ . The Frobenius morphism F _G (resp. ${F_\mathfrak{g}}$ ) can be defined naturally on G (resp. ${\mathfrak{g}}$ ). In this paper, we determine the ${F_\mathfrak{g}}$ -stable G-orbits in ${\mathfrak{g}}$ . Furthermore, the number of ${\mathbb{F}_q}$ -rational points in each ${F_\mathfrak{g}}$ -stable orbit is precisely given. Consequently, we obtain the number of ${\mathbb{F}_q}$ -rational points in the nilpotent variety.     

A Construction of Generalized Harish-Chandra Modules for Locally Reductive Lie Algebras

We study cohomological induction for a pair $ {\left( {\mathfrak{g},\mathfrak{k}} \right)} $ , $ \mathfrak{g} $ being an infinitedimensional locally reductive Lie algebra and $ \mathfrak{k} \subset \mathfrak{g} $ being of the form $ \mathfrak{k}_{0} \subset C_{\mathfrak{g}} {\left( {\mathfrak{k}_{0} } \right)} $ , where $ \mathfrak{k}_{0} \subset \mathfrak{g} $ is a finite-dimensional reductive in $ \mathfrak{g} $ subalgebra and $ C_{\mathfrak{g}} {\left( {\mathfrak{k}_{0} } \right)} $ is the centralizer of $ \mathfrak{k}_{0} $ in $ \mathfrak{g} $ . We prove a general nonvanishing and $ \mathfrak{k} $ -finiteness theorem for the output. This yields, in particular, simple $ {\left( {\mathfrak{g},\mathfrak{k}} \right)} $ -modules of finite type over k which are analogs of the fundamental series of generalized Harish-Chandra modules constructed in [PZ1] and [PZ2]. We study explicit versions of the construction when $ \mathfrak{g} $ is a root-reductive or diagonal locally simple Lie algebra.     

Existence, automatic continuity and invariant submodules of generalized derivations on modules

Let ${\mathcal{A}}$ be a ${\mathbb{C}}$ -algebra, δ be a derivation on ${\mathcal{A}}$ and ${\mathcal{M}}$ be a left ${\mathcal{A}}$ -module. A linear map ${\tau : \mathcal{M} \rightarrow \mathcal{M}}$ is called a generalized derivation relative to δ if ${\tau(am)=a\tau(m)+\delta(a)m\,(a \in \mathcal{A}, m \in \mathcal{M})}$ . In this article first we study the existence of generalized derivations. In particular we show that free modules and projective modules always have nontrivial generalized derivations relative to nonzero derivations of ${\mathcal{A}}$ . Then we investigate the invariance of prime submodules under generalized derivations. Specifically we show that every minimal prime submodule of ${\mathcal{M}}$ is invariant under every generalized derivation. Moreover we obtain analogs of Posner’s theorem for generalized derivations. In the case that ${\mathcal{A}}$ is a Banach algebra and ${\mathcal{M}}$ is a Banach left ${\mathcal{A}}$ -module, we study the existence of continuous generalized derivations and automatic continuity of generalized derivations.     

Two-Point Distortion for Nehari Functions

Let $\mathcal N (t)$ , $t\ge 0$ , be the Nehari class of locally injective holomorphic functions on the unit disk $\mathbb D $ that satisfy $$\begin{aligned} \sup _{z\in \mathbb D }\big (1-|z|^2\big )^2|S_f(z)| \le 2t, \end{aligned}$$ where $S_f = f^{\prime \prime \prime }/f^{\prime } - (3/2)\big (f^{\prime \prime }/f^{\prime }\big )^2$ is the Schwarzian derivative of $f$ . Sharp two-point upper and lower distortion theorems for these functions were recently established by Chuaqui, Duren, Ma, Mejia, Minda and Osgood. A classical result of Krauss shows that all univalent functions on $\mathbb D $ lie in $\mathcal N (3)$ . There are two different two-point upper distortion theorems for univalent functions due to Jenkins, Ma and Minda, and Kraus and Roth. Two similar two-point upper distortion theorems hold for $\mathcal N (t)$ . These two-point upper distortion theorems for $\mathcal N (3)$ are the known two-point upper distortion theorems for univalent functions, so the latter are actually valid for the larger class $\mathcal N (3)$ . Two-point distortion theorems for $\mathcal N (t)$ imply local uniform control in the hyperbolic sense on absolute cross-ratio distortion for functions in $\mathcal N (t)$ .     

Categories of bounded \left( {\mathfrak{sp}\left( {{{\mathrm{S}}^2}V \oplus {{\mathrm{S}}^2}{V^{*}}} \right),\;\mathfrak{gl}(V)} \right) - and \left( {\mathfrak{sp}\left( {{\varLambda^2}V \oplus {\varLambda^2}{V^{*}}} \right),\;\mathfrak{gl}(V)} \right) -modules

Let $ \mathfrak{g} $ be a reductive Lie algebra over $ \mathbb{C} $ and $ \mathfrak{k} \subset \mathfrak{g} $ be a reductive in $ \mathfrak{g} $ subalgebra. We call a $ \mathfrak{g} $ -module M a $ \left( {\mathfrak{g}{\hbox{,}}\;\mathfrak{k}} \right) $ -module whenever M is a direct sum of finite-dimensional $ \mathfrak{k} $ -modules. We call a $ \left( {\mathfrak{g}{\hbox{,}}\;\mathfrak{k}} \right) $ -module M bounded if there exists $ {C_M} \in {\mathbb{Z}_{{ \geqslant 0}}} $ such that for any simple finite-dimensional $ \mathfrak{k} $ -module E the dimension of the E-isotypic component is not greater than C _M dim E. Bounded $ \left( {\mathfrak{g}{\hbox{,}}\;\mathfrak{k}} \right) $ -modules form a subcategory of the category of $ \mathfrak{g} $ -modules. Let V be a finite-dimensional vector space. We prove that the categories of bounded $ \left( {\mathfrak{sp}\left( {{{\mathrm{S}}^2}V \oplus {{\mathrm{S}}^2}{V^{*}}} \right),\;\mathfrak{gl}(V)} \right) $ - and $ \left( {\mathfrak{sp}\left( {{\varLambda^2}V \oplus {\varLambda^2}{V^{*}}} \right),\;\mathfrak{gl}(V)} \right) $ -modules are isomorphic to the direct sum of countably many copies of the category of representations of some explicitly described quiver with relations under some mild assumptions on the dimension of V .     

On the pullback of an arithmetic theta function

In this paper, we describe a relationship between the simplest examples of arithmetic theta series. The first of these are the weight 1 theta series ${\widehat{\phi}_{\mathcal C}(\tau)}$ defined using arithmetic 0-cycles on the moduli space ${\mathcal C}$ of elliptic curves with CM by the ring of integers ${O_{\kappa}}$ of an imaginary quadratic field. The second such series ${\widehat{\phi}_{\mathcal M}(\tau)}$ has weight 3/2 and takes values in the arithmetic Chow group ${\widehat{{\rm CH}}^1(\mathcal{M})}$ of the arithmetic surface associated to an indefinite quaternion algebra ${B/\mathbb{Q}}$ . For an embedding ${O_\kappa \rightarrow O_B}$ , a maximal order in B, and a two sided O _B -ideal Λ, there is a morphism ${j_\Lambda:{\mathcal C} \rightarrow {\mathcal M}}$ and a pullback ${j_\Lambda^*: \widehat{{\rm CH}}^1(\mathcal{M}) \rightarrow \widehat{{\rm CH}}^1(\mathcal C)}$ . Our main result is an expression for the pullback ${j^*_\Lambda \widehat{\phi}_{\mathcal M}(\tau)}$ as a linear combination of products of ${\widehat{\phi}_{\mathcal C}(\tau)}$ ’s and classical weight ${\frac{1}{2}}$ theta series.     

The Duality Property of Positive R-Compact Operators

We study the duality of r-compact operator. We establish if an operator ${T:E\rightarrow F}$ is r-compact, then its adjoint ${T^{\prime}: F^{\prime }\rightarrow E^{\prime }}$ is also r-compact. We also provide some sufficient condition on the pair of Banach lattices E and F which guarantees that a regular operator ${T:E\rightarrow F}$ such that ${T^{\prime }:F^{\prime }\rightarrow E^{\prime }}$ is r-compact, must itself be r-compact.     

Congruence Properties of Binary Partition Functions

Let ${\mathcal{A}}$ be a finite subset of ${\mathbb{N}}$ containing 0, and let f (n) denote the number of ways to write n in the form ${\sum \varepsilon _{j}2^{j}}$ , where ${\varepsilon _{j} \epsilon \mathcal{A}}$ . We show that there exists a computable ${T = T (\mathcal{A})}$ so that the sequence (f (n) mod 2) is periodic with period T. Variations and generalizations of this problem are also discussed.     

Height of a Superposition

We observe that, given a poset ${\left( {E,{\user1{\mathcal{R}}}} \right)}$ and a finite covering ${\user1{\mathcal{R}}} = {\user1{\mathcal{R}}}_{1} \cup \cdots \cup {\user1{\mathcal{R}}}_{n} $ of its ordering, the height of the poset does not exceed the natural product of the heights of the corresponding sub-relations: $$\mathfrak{h}{\left( {E,{\user1{\mathcal{R}}}} \right)} \leqslant \mathfrak{h}{\left( {E,{\user1{\mathcal{R}}}_{1} } \right)} \otimes \cdots \otimes \mathfrak{h}{\left( {E,{\user1{\mathcal{R}}}_{n} } \right)}.$$ Conversely for every finite sequence $(\xi_1,\cdots,\xi_n)$ of ordinals, every poset ${\left( {E,{\user1{\mathcal{R}}}} \right)}$ of height at most $\xi_1\otimes\cdots\otimes\xi_n$ admits a partition ${\left( {{\user1{\mathcal{R}}}_{1} , \cdots ,{\user1{\mathcal{R}}}_{n} } \right)}$ of its ordering ${\user1{\mathcal{R}}}$ such that each ${\left( {E,{\user1{\mathcal{R}}}_{k} } \right)}$ has height at most $\xi_k$ . In particular for every finite sequence $(\xi_1,\cdots,\xi_n)$ of ordinals, the ordinal $$\xi _{1} \underline{ \otimes } \cdots \underline{ \otimes } \xi _{n} : = \sup {\left\{ {{\left( {\xi ^{\prime }_{1} \otimes \cdots \otimes \xi ^{\prime }_{n} } \right)} + 1:\xi ^{\prime }_{1} < \xi _{1} , \cdots ,\xi ^{\prime }_{n} < \xi _{n} } \right\}}$$ is the least $\xi$ for which the following partition relation holds $$\mathfrak{H}_{\xi } \to {\left( {\mathfrak{H}_{{\xi _{1} }} , \cdots ,\mathfrak{H}_{{\xi _{n} }} } \right)}^{2} $$ meaning: for every poset ${\left( {A,{\user1{\mathcal{R}}}} \right)}$ of height at least $\xi$ and every finite covering ${\left( {{\user1{\mathcal{R}}}_{1} , \cdots ,{\user1{\mathcal{R}}}_{n} } \right)}$ of its ordering ${\user1{\mathcal{R}}}$ , there is a $k$ for which the relation ${\left( {A,{\user1{\mathcal{R}}}_{k} } \right)}$ has height at least $\xi_k$ . The proof will rely on analogue properties of vertex coverings w.r.t. the natural sum.     

True Poly-Bergman and Poly-Bergman Kernels for the Complement of a Closed Disk

Let $k$ and $j$ be positive integers. We prove that the action of the two-dimensional singular integral operators $(S_\Omega )^{j-1}$ and $(S_\Omega ^*)^{j-1}$ on a Hilbert base for the Bergman space $\mathcal{A }^2(\Omega )$ and anti-Bergman space $\mathcal{A }^2_{-1}(\Omega ),$ respectively, gives Hilbert bases $\{ \psi _{\pm j , k } \}_{ k }$ for the true poly-Bergman spaces $\mathcal{A }_{(\pm j)}^2(\Omega ),$ where $S_\Omega $ denotes the compression of the Beurling transform to the Lebesgue space $L^2(\Omega , dA).$ The functions $\psi _{\pm j,k}$ will be explicitly represented in terms of the $(2,1)$ -hypergeometric polynomials as well as by formulas of Rodrigues type. We prove explicit representations for the true poly-Bergman kernels and more transparent representations for the poly-Bergman kernels of $\Omega $ . We establish Rodrigues type formulas for the poly-Bergman kernels of $\mathbb{D }$ .     

On uniformly bounded spherical functions in Hilbert space

Let G be a commutative group, written additively, with a neutral element 0, and let K be a finite group. Suppose that K acts on G via group automorphisms ${G \ni a \mapsto ka \in G}$ , ${k \in K}$ . Let ${{\mathfrak{H}}}$ be a complex Hilbert space and let ${{\mathcal L}({\mathfrak{H}})}$ be the algebra of all bounded linear operators on ${{\mathfrak{H}}}$ . A mapping ${u \colon G \to {\mathcal L}({\mathfrak{H}})}$ is termed a K-spherical function if it satisfies (1) ${|K|^{-1} \sum_{k\in K} u (a+kb)=u (a) u (b)}$ for any ${a,b\in G}$ , where |K| denotes the cardinality of K, and (2) ${u (0) = {\rm id}_{\mathfrak {H}},}$ where ${{\rm id}_{\mathfrak {H}}}$ designates the identity operator on ${{\mathfrak{H}}}$ . The main result of the paper is that for each K-spherical function ${u \colon G \to {\mathcal {L}}({\mathfrak {H}})}$ such that ${\| u \|_{\infty} = \sup_{a\in G} \| u (a)\|_{{\mathcal L}({\mathfrak{H}})} < \infty,}$ there is an invertible operator S in ${{\mathcal L}({\mathfrak{H}})}$ with ${\| S \| \, \| S^{-1}\| \leq |K| \, \| u \|_{\infty}^2}$ such that the K-spherical function ${{\tilde{u}} \colon G \to {\mathcal L}({\mathfrak{H}})}$ defined by ${{\tilde{u}}(a) = S u (a) S^{-1},\,a \in G,}$ satisfies ${{\tilde{u}}(-a) = {\tilde{u}}(a)^*}$ for each ${a \in G}$ . It is shown that this last condition is equivalent to insisting that ${{\tilde{u}}(a)}$ be normal for each ${a \in G}$ .     

On the images of horodisks under holomorphic self-maps of the unit disk

Suppose that f is a holomorphic self map of the unit disk ${\mathbb{D}}$ . Recently several monotonicity results related to the image of smaller disks under f have been proved. These results extend the classical Schwarz lemma in various ways. We prove analogous monotonicity results in the context of Julia’s boundary Schwarz lemma. A horodisk is a disk internally tangent to the unit circle. For positive ${\lambda}$ , we denote by ${H_{\lambda}}$ the disk of radius ${\lambda/(1\,+\,\lambda)}$ centered at the point ${1/(1\,+\,\lambda)}$ . This is a horodisk that touches the unit circle at the point 1. Suppose that f(1) = 1 (in the sense of radial limit) and denote by ${f^{\prime}(1)}$ the angular derivative. By Julia’s lemma ${f(H_{\lambda})\,\subset H_{{\lambda}f^{\prime}(1)}}$ . Let ${\Psi_f(\lambda)\,=\,\inf\,\{\rho > 0 : f(H_{\lambda}) \subset H_\rho\}}$ . We show that the function ${\Psi_f(\lambda)/\lambda}$ is a decreasing function of ${\lambda}$ and that ${\lim_{\lambda\,\to\,0+} \Psi_f(\lambda)/\lambda = f^\prime(1)}$ . This result implies that the constant ${f^\prime(1)}$ in Julia’s lemma is the best possible.     

A Note on Classical and p-adic Fréchet Functional Equations with Restrictions

Given X,Y two ${\mathbb{Q}}$ -vector spaces, and f : X → Y, we study under which conditions on the sets ${B_{k} \subseteq X, k=1,\ldots,s}$ , if ${\Delta_{h_1h_2 \cdots h_s}f(x) = 0}$ for all ${x \in X}$ and ${h_k \in B_k, k = 1,2,\ldots,s}$ , then ${\Delta_{h_1h_2\cdots h_{s}}f(x) = 0}$ for all ${(x,h_{1},\ldots,h_{s}) \in X^{s+1}}$ .     

Planar Beurling Transform and Bergman Type Spaces

In this paper we describe the actions of the operator $S_\mathbb{D }$ or its adjoint $S_\mathbb{D }^*$ on the poly-Bergman spaces of the unit disk $\mathbb{D }.$ Let $k$ and $j$ be positive integers. We prove that $(S_\mathbb{D })^{j}$ is an isometric isomorphism between the true poly-Bergman subspace $\mathcal{A }_{(k)}^2(\mathbb{D })\ominus N_{(k),j}$ onto the true poly-Bergman space $\mathcal{A }_{(j+k)}^2(\mathbb{D }),$ where the linear space $N_{(k),j}$ have finite dimension $j.$ The action of $(S_\mathbb{D })^{j-1}$ on the canonical Hilbert base for the Bergman subspace $\mathcal{A }^2(\mathbb{D })\ominus \mathcal{P }_{j-1},$ gives a Hilbert base $\{ \phi _{ j , k } \}_{ k }$ for $\mathcal{A }_{(j)}^2(\mathbb{D }).$ It is shown that $\{ \phi _{ j , k } \}_{ j, k }$ is a Hilbert base for $L^2(\mathbb{D },d A)$ such that whenever $j$ and $k$ remain constant we obtain a Hilbert base for the true poly-Bergman space $\mathcal{A }_{(j)}^2(\mathbb{D })$ and $\mathcal{A }_{(-k)}^2(\mathbb{D }),$ respectively. The functions $\phi _{ j , k }$ are polynomials in $z$ and $\overline{z}$ and are explicitly given in terms of the $(2,1)$ -hypergeometric polynomials. We prove explicit representations for the true poly-Bergman kernels and the Koshelev representation for the poly-Bergman kernels of $\mathbb{D }.$ The action of $S_\Pi $ on the true poly-Bergman spaces of the upper half-plane $\Pi $ allows one to introduce Hilbert bases for the true poly-Bergman spaces, and to give explicit representations of the true poly-Bergman and poly-Bergman kernels.     

Irregular and Singular Loci of Commuting Varieties

Let $ {\user1{\mathcal{C}}} $ be the commuting variety of the Lie algebra $ \mathfrak{g} $ of a connected noncommutative reductive algebraic group G over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. Let $ {\user1{\mathcal{C}}}^{{{\text{sing}}}} $ be the singular locus of $ {\user1{\mathcal{C}}} $ and let $ {\user1{\mathcal{C}}}^{{{\text{irr}}}} $ be the locus of points whose G-stabilizers have dimension > rk G. We prove that: (a) $ {\user1{\mathcal{C}}}^{{{\text{sing}}}} $ is a nonempty subset of $ {\user1{\mathcal{C}}}^{{{\text{irr}}}} $ ; (b) $ {\text{codim}}_{{\user1{\mathcal{C}}}} \,{\user1{\mathcal{C}}}^{{{\text{irr}}}} = 5 - {\text{max}}\,l{\left( \mathfrak{a} \right)} $ where the maximum is taken over all simple ideals $ \mathfrak{a} $ of $ \mathfrak{g} $ and $ l{\left( \mathfrak{a} \right)} $ is the “lacety” of $ \mathfrak{a} $ ; and (c) if $ \mathfrak{t} $ is a Cartan subalgebra of $ \mathfrak{g} $ and $ \alpha \in \mathfrak{t}^{*} $ root of $ \mathfrak{g} $ with respect to $ \mathfrak{t} $ , then $ \overline{{G{\left( {{\text{Ker}}\,\alpha \times {\text{Ker }}\alpha } \right)}}} $ is an irreducible component of $ {\user1{\mathcal{C}}}^{{{\text{irr}}}} $ of codimension 4 in $ {\user1{\mathcal{C}}} $ . This yields the bound $ {\text{codim}}_{{\user1{\mathcal{C}}}} \,{\user1{\mathcal{C}}}^{{{\text{sing}}}} \geqslant 5 - {\text{max}}\,l{\left( \mathfrak{a} \right)} $ and, in particular, $ {\text{codim}}_{{\user1{\mathcal{C}}}} \,{\user1{\mathcal{C}}}^{{{\text{sing}}}} \geqslant 2 $ . The latter may be regarded as an evidence in favor of the known longstanding conjecture that $ {\user1{\mathcal{C}}} $ is always normal. We also prove that the algebraic variety $ {\user1{\mathcal{C}}} $ is rational.