Enright resolutions encoded by a generating function for Blattner's formula: Type A

Abstract

Consider the classical action of ${\rm GL}_n$ on a sum of $q$ copies of the defining representation and $p$ copies of its dual; by Howe duality, the polynomial functions on this space decompose under the joint action of ${\rm GL}_n$ and $\mathfrak{gl}_{p+q}$. The modules for $\mathfrak{gl}_{p+q}$ are infinite-dimensional and their structure is complicated outside a certain stable range, although Enright and Willenbring (2005) constructed resolutions in terms of generalized Verma modules. We show that these resolutions can be read off from the coefficients in a formal series arising in an entirely different setting: discrete series representations of ${\rm SU}(n,p+q)$ in the case of two noncompact simple roots.