Cohomology of a loop Grassmannian and the principal nilpotent

Given a complex projective algebraic variety, write H•(X,C) for its cohomology with complex coefficients and IH •(X,C) for its Intersection cohomology. We first show that under some fairly general conditions the canonical map H•(X,C) → IH •(X,C) is injective. Now let Gr := G((z))/G[[z]] be the loop Grassmannian for a complex semisimple group G, and let X be the closure of a G[[z]]-orbit in Gr. We prove, using the general result above, a conjecture of D. Peterson describing the cohomology algebra H•(X,C) in terms of the centralizer of the principal nilpotent in the Langlands dual of Lie (G). In the last section we give a new ”topological” proof of Kostant’s theorem about the polynomial algebra of a semisimple Lie algebra, based on purity of the equivariant intersection cohomology groups of G[[z]]-orbits on Gr.