TITLE: Heisenberg subalgebras of affine Lie algebras
QUESTION [5 upvotes]: It seems to be "well-known" that (infinite-dimensional) Heisenberg subalgebras of an affine Lie algebra $\hat{\mathfrak{g}}$ corresponding to a finite-dimensional simple Lie algebra $\mathfrak{g}$ of type $A$, $D$, or $E$ are parametrized (up to conjugacy) by the set of conjugacy classes in the Weyl group of $\mathfrak{g}$.  For instance, this statement can be found in the paper "112 constructions of the basic representation of the loop group of $E_8$" by Kac and Peterson (MR).  However, no proof is given in this paper.  (A Heisenberg subalgebra is constructed for each element of the Weyl group, but the assertion that this leads to a parametrization of all of them is not proved.)  Does anyone know of a reference (with proof) of this classification of Heisenberg subalgebras of affine Lie algebras?

REPLY [4 votes]: Up to the central extension (which doesn't affect the classification) this is a special case of the classification of Cartan subgroups of a reductive group over a field. Since they all split after an etale extension, where they are uniquely conjugate up to Weyl group, they are given by Galois $H^1$ of the field with coefficients in the Weyl group. In our case the Galois group is $\widehat {\mathbf Z}$, so we get just elements of $W$ up to conjugacy. Geometrically this means such a subgroup is conjugate to standard one after passing to a branched cover of the disc (etale cover of punctured disc), and so is classified by the monodromy of the associated cameral cover ($W$-torsor over the punctured disc of all ways to conjugate to a standard Cartan).