Sharp tridiagonal pairs

Let denote a field and let V denote a vector space over with finite positive dimension. We consider a pair of -linear transformations A:V→V and A^*:V→V that satisfies the following conditions: (i) each of A,A^* is diagonalizable; (ii) there exists an ordering of the eigenspaces of A such that A^*V_iV_i-1+V_i+V_i+1 for 0id, where V_-1=0 and V_d+1=0; (iii) there exists an ordering of the eigenspaces of A^* such that for 0iδ, where and ; (iv) there is no subspace W of V such that AWW, A^*WW, W≠0, W≠V. We call such a pair a tridiagonal pair on V. It is known that d=δ and for 0id the dimensions of coincide. We say the pair A,A^* is sharp whenever dimV₀=1. A conjecture of Tatsuro Ito and the second author states that if is algebraically closed then A,A^* is sharp. In order to better understand and eventually prove the conjecture, in this paper we begin a systematic study of the sharp tridiagonal pairs. Our results are summarized as follows. Assuming A,A^* is sharp and using the data we define a finite sequence of scalars called the parameter array. We display some equations that show the geometric significance of the parameter array. We show how the parameter array is affected if Φ is replaced by or or . We prove that if the isomorphism class of Φ is determined by the parameter array then there exists a nondegenerate symmetric bilinear form , on V such that Au,v=u,Av and A^*u,v=u,A^*v for all u,vV.