Unipotent Hecke algebras: the structure, representation theory, and combinatorics
Arun Ram
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
University of Melbourne
Parkville, VIC 3010 Australia
aram@unimelb.edu.au
Last updated: 26 March 2015
This is an excerpt of the PhD thesis Unipotent Hecke algebras: the structure, representation theory, and combinatorics by F. Nathaniel Edgar Thiem.
Unipotent Hecke algebras
The algebras
Important subgroups of a Chevalley group
Let be a Chevalley group defined with a
as in Section 2.2.2. Recall that is the set of positive roots according to some fixed set of simple
roots
of (Section 2.2.1). The group contains a subgroup given by
which decomposes as
with uniqueness of expression for any fixed ordering of the positive roots [Ste1967, Lemma 18]. For each
the map
is a group homomorphism.
For define the maps
The Weyl group of is
and has a presentation given by
If
with minimal, then the length of is
Let be as in (2.3). If then the subgroup
has its normalizer in given by
If then
Write
and
There is a natural surjection from onto the Weyl group with kernel given by
Suppose Then for each minimal expression
there is a unique decomposition of as
Write
Unipotent Hecke algebras
Let be a finite Chevalley group. Fix a nontrivial homomorphism
If
then the map
is a linear character of In fact, with the exception of a few degenerate special cases of
(which can be avoided if all linear characters of
are of this form [Yok1969, Theorem 1].
The unipotent Hecke algebra is
Using the anti-isomorphism (2.2), view as the subset of
The choices and
This section assumes all linear characters of are of the form
for some nontrivial homomorphism
and as in (3.6).
The group normalizes since
Thus, if is a linear character, then
is a linear character for every
Suppose is a linear character. For every
Proof.
Recall that
Since normalizes the sum over all
such that is the same as
the sum over such that
Thus,
The type of a linear character
is the set
such that
A unipotent Hecke algebra has
type if has type
(a)
Fix a nontrivial homomorphism
If
is a homomorphism, then there exists such that
(b)
The linear characters and
have the same type for any
(c)
Let
and
Then the number of of is
(d)
The number of distinct (nonisomorphic) type unipotent Hecke algebras is at most
Proof.
(a) The map
is a group homomorphism, and the kernel is trivial because is nontrivial. Since
the map is also surjective.
(b) Since
the restriction of to gives a linear character of
Part (a) implies that for every
there exists
such that
Furthermore, if has type then
if and only if
Write
Since
for
and if and
only if if and only if
Thus, the action of preserves the type of
(c) Suppose a group acts on a set Then by [Isa1994, Theorem 4.18] the number of orbits
of the action is
In this case, acts on the set
Furthermore,
Finally,
Examples.
1.
If then
and
so there is a unique unipotent Hecke algebra of type in this case,
is trivial and is the Yokonuma algebra.
2.
A character is in general position if it has type
In this case, is the center of and
so the number of type
unipotent Hecke algebras is at most
A natural basis
The group has a double-coset decomposition
and if
then the set
is a basis for [CRe1981, Prop. 11.30].
Theorem 3.7 gives a set of relations similar to those of the Yokonuma algebra (Example 1, below) for evaluating the product
in any unipotent Hecke algebra
Examples.
1. The Yokonuma Hecke algebra. If for all positive roots
then is the trivial
character and Let
for with
as in (3.5)) and
If has a decomposition
(as in (3.4)), then
Thus, the Yokonuma algebra has generators
for
(see [Yok1969-2]) with relations,
These relations give an “efficient” way to compute arbitrary products
in There is a surjective map from the Yokonuma algebra onto the
Iwahori-Hecke algebra that sends for all
“Setting in the Yokonuma algebra relations recovers relations for the
Iwahori-Hecke algebra,
Furthermore, there is a surjective map from the Iwahori Hecke algebra onto the Weyl group given by mapping
and
Thus, by “setting
and we retrieve the Coxeter relations of
For a more detailed discussion of the Yokonuma algebra, see Chapter 6.
2. The Gelfand-Graev Hecke algebra. By definition, if
for all simple roots then is in general position. In this
case, the Gelfand-Graev character
is multiplicity free as a ([Yok1968],[Ste1967, Theorem 49]). The corresponding Hecke algebra
is therefore commutative. However, decomposing the product
into basis elements is more challenging than in the Yokonuma case [Cha1976, Cur1988, Rai2002].
Parabolic subalgebras of
Let be as in (3.7). Fix a subset
such that
For example, if is in general position, then
but if is trivial, then could be any subset.
Let
Then has subgroups
(a Levi subgroup and the unipotent radical of respectively). Note that
Define the idempotents of
so that
The group homomorphisms
induce maps
whose composition is the map
Note that in the special case when is an irreducible
with corresponding idempotent then
The map
restricts to a linear character
To make the notation less heavy-handed, write
for
Let be as in (3.7). Then
Proof.
Recall
On the other hand,
where is as in (3.13). But
so
The map
is an injective algebra homomorphism.
Proof.
Let Since
and
Because normalizes both
and commute with
Therefore,
and
Consequently, is both well-defined and injective.
Consider
Since commutes with
and so is an algebra homomorphism.
Write
The are “parabolic” subalgebras of in that they have a
similar relationship to the representation theory of as parabolic subgroups
have with the representation theory of
Weight space decompositions for
An important special case of Theorem 3.4 is when
so that has type Write
etc.
The algebra is a nonzero commutative subalgebra of
Proof.
As a character of
is in general position, so
is a Gelfand-Graev module and is a Gelfand-Graev Hecke algebra (and therefore commutative).
Since is commutative, all the irreducible modules are one-dimensional; let
be an indexing set for the irreducible modules of Suppose is
an As an
If then
is the
space of and has a weight if
See Chapter 6 for an application of this decomposition.
Examples
1.
In the Yokonuma algebra
and
2.
In the Gelfand-Graev Hecke algebra case,
and (confirming, but not proving, that
is commutative).
Multiplication of basis elements
This section examines the decomposition of products in terms of the natural basis
In particular, Theorem 3.7, below, gives a set of braid-like relations (similar to those of the Yokonuma algebra) for manipulating the products, and Corollary 3.9
gives a recursive formula for computing these products.
Chevalley group relations
The relations governing the interaction between the subgroups and
will be critical in describing the Hecke algebra multiplication in the following section. They can all be found in [Ste1967].
The subgroup
has generators
with relations
where depends on
but not on [Ste1967]. The
have been explicitly computed for various types in [Dem1965, Ste1967] (See also Appendix A).
The subgroup has generators
with relations
where depends on
as in (2.6).
The double-coset decomposition of (3.10) implies
Thus, is generated by
with relations (U1)-(N7) and
where for and
Fix a as in (3.7). For
let
Note that for any given ordering of the positive roots, the decomposition
In particular, given any we may choose the ordering of the
positive roots to have appear either first or last. Therefore, since
is an idempotent,
If
with minimal, then let
where the second equality is in [Bou2002, VI.1, Corollary 2 of Proposition 17].
Let and let
(with as in (3.3)).
Proof.
(E1) Using relation (UN1), we have
(E2) Suppose Since
In particular,
and we may conclude
(E3) Since
we have
(E4) Note that
Therefore, by (3.18),
Local Hecke algebra relations
Let
decompose according to
For define constants
and roots by the equation
Note that
(see (3.19)). Define by
and for
let
Let
decompose according to
and
respectively, as in (3.4). Then
(a)
where
(b)
The following local relations suffice to compute the product
Proof.
(a) Order the positive roots so that by (3.17)
where
as desired.
(b) First, note that these relations are in fact correct (though not necessarily sufficient):
comes from (UN3);
comes from (UN1);
comes from (UN2);
comes from (E4);
comes from the multiplicativity of
comes from (N3);
comes from (U1) and (UN1);
comes from (U2);
is (N4); and
is (N2). It therefore remains to show sufficiency.
By (a) we may write
for some
and Say is resolved
if the only part of the sum depending on is
The product is reduced
when all the are resolved. I will show how to resolve
and the result will follow by induction.
Use relation to define the constant and the root
by
There are two possible situations:
Case 1.
Case 2.
In Case 1,
where
We have resolved in Case 1.
In Case 2, so we can no longer move
past the Instead,
where
(same as in the analogous steps in Case 1).
where
catalogues the substitutions to due to
the
are determined by repeated applications of and
and
where
Now is resolved for Case 2, as desired.
(Resolving Let
decompose according to
(with Suppose
and
Define and by the equation
Then
Case 1 If
then
Case 2 If
then
where
is given by
Proof.
This Lemma puts in the place of
in the proof of Theorem 3.7, (b), and summarizes the steps taken in Case 1 and Case 2.
Global Hecke algebra relations
Fix
decomposed according
(see (3.4)). Suppose and let
For let
be such that
where and are symbols. If
has elements, then the colength of is
For example, if and
then
For let
By convention, if
then
Suppose
Define
where
with
in (3.26); and is defined recursively by
where
and the map is as in Lemma 3.8, Case 2.
Remarks.
1.
By (3.24) and Theorem 3.7 (a),
(recall,
2.
If so that
is a string of length then
(a)
has no remaining factors of the form
(b)
unless
for some
The following corollary gives relations for expanding
(beginning with
as a sum of terms of the form with
When each term has colength (or length then we will have decomposed the product
in terms of the basis elements of
In summary, while we compute recursively by removing elements from
we compute the product
by progressively adding elements to
(The Global Alternative). Let
such that
decomposes according to a minimal expression in Let
Then
(a)
(b)
If
then
Proof.
(a) follows from Remark 1.
(b) Suppose Note that
where
(as in (3.25)). Apply Lemma 3.8 to the inside sum with
Note that the Lemma relations imply
Thus
as desired.
Notes and References
This is an excerpt of the PhD thesis Unipotent Hecke algebras: the structure, representation theory, and combinatorics by F. Nathaniel Edgar Thiem.
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