Degenerations of submodules and composition series

Abstract

Let $M$ and $N$ be modules over an artin algebra such that $M$ degenerates to $N$. We show that any submodule of $M$ degenerates to a submodule of $N$. This suggests that a composition series of $M$ will in some sense degenerate to a composition series of $N$. We then study a subvariety of the module variety, consisting of those representations where all matrices are upper triangular. We show that these representations can be seen as representations of composition series, and that the orbit closures describe the above mentioned degeneration of composition series.