Iwasawa algebras are completions of group algebras for p-adic Lie groups, and have applications for studying the representations of these groups. It is an ongoing project to study the prime ideals, and more generally the two-sided ideals, of these algebras.
In the case of Iwasawa algebras corresponding to a simple Lie algebra with a Chevalley basis, we aim to prove that all non-zero two-sided ideals have finite codimension. To prove this, it is sufficient to show faithfulness of modules arising from highest-weight modules for the corresponding Lie algebra.
I have proved two main results in this direction: firstly, I proved the faithfulness of generalised Verma modules over the Iwasawa algebra. Secondly, I proved the faithfulness of all infinite-dimensional highest-weight modules in the case where the Lie algebra has type A. In this talk, I will outline the methods I used to prove these cases.