Invariant differential operators on spherical homogeneous spaces with overgroups

Abstract: We investigate the structure of the ring ${\mathbb D}G(X)$ of $G$-invariant differential operators on a reductive spherical homogeneous space $X=G/H$ with an overgroup $\widetilde{G}$. We consider three natural subalgebras of ${\mathbb D}_G(X)$ which are polynomial algebras with explicit generators, namely the subalgebra ${\mathbb D}{\widetilde{G}}(X)$ of $\widetilde{G}$-invariant differential operators on $X$ and two other subalgebras coming from the centers of the enveloping algebras of $\mathfrak g$ and $\mathfrak k$, where $K$ is a maximal proper subgroup of $G$ containing $H$. We show that in most cases ${\mathbb D}G(X)$ is generated by any two of these three subalgebras, and analyze when this may fail. Moreover, we find explicit relations among the generators for each possible triple $(\widetilde{G},G,H)$, and describe "transfer maps" connecting eigenvalues for ${\mathbb D}{\widetilde{G}}(X)$ and for the center $Z({\mathfrak g}{\mathbb C})$ of the enveloping algebra of ${\mathbb g}{\mathbb C}$.