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103 votes
3 answers
6k views

Why do combinatorial abstractions of geometric objects behave so well?

This question is inspired by a talk of June Huh from the recent "Current Developments in Mathematics" conference. Here are two examples of the kind of combinatorial abstractions of geometric ...
Sam Hopkins's user avatar
  • 24.2k
58 votes
3 answers
4k views

Is "semisimple" a dense condition among Lie algebras?

The "Motivation" section is a cute story, and may be skipped; the "Definitions" section establishes notation and background results; my question is in "My Question", and in brief in the title. Some ...
Theo Johnson-Freyd's user avatar
50 votes
1 answer
15k views

Consequences of Geometric Langlands

So, lots of people work on the Geometric Langlands Conjecture, and there have been a few questions around here on it (admittedly, several of them mine). So here's another one, tagged community wiki ...
44 votes
2 answers
3k views

Why can't we take three loops?

Apologies for the vague title and soft question. According to Etingof, Igor Frenkel once suggested that there are three "levels" to Lie theory, which I guess could be given the following names: No ...
Qiaochu Yuan's user avatar
42 votes
6 answers
7k views

Why we need to study representations of matrix groups?

Why we need to study representations of matrix groups? For example, the group $\operatorname{SL}_2(\mathbb F_q)$, where $\mathbb F_q$ is the field with $q$ elements, is studied by Drinfeld. I think ...
Jianrong Li's user avatar
  • 6,201
40 votes
8 answers
11k views

Ubiquity of the push-pull formula

The push-pull formula appears in several different incarnations. There are, at least, the following: 1) If $f \colon X \to Y$ is a continous map, then for sheaves $\mathcal{F}$ on $X$ and $\mathcal{G}...
Andrea Ferretti's user avatar
40 votes
1 answer
4k views

Roadmap to Geometric Representation Theory (leading to Langlands)?

I believe there has been at least one question similar to this one and yet I still think this particular question deserves to have a thread of its own. I'm becoming increasingly fascinated by stuff ...
Saal Hardali's user avatar
  • 7,789
38 votes
18 answers
24k views

Learning about Lie groups

Can someone suggest a good book for teaching myself about Lie groups? I study algebraic geometry and commutative algebra, and I like lots of examples. Thanks.
36 votes
3 answers
3k views

Tannaka formalism and the étale fundamental group

For quite a while, I have been wondering if there is a general principle/theory that has both Tannaka fundamental groups and étale fundamental groups as a special case. To elaborate: The theory of ...
Lars's user avatar
  • 4,450
34 votes
4 answers
5k views

Mathematical uses of string theory

It is widely believed that correctness of string theory as a physical theory will not be decided in the near future. Regardless whether this will turn out to be correct or not, mathematical concepts ...
33 votes
2 answers
2k views

What do cluster algebras tell us about Grassmannians?

One of the first examples of a cluster algebra given in Fomin and Zelevinsky's original paper is the homogeneous coordinate ring $\mathbb{C}[G_{2,n}]$ of the Grassmannian of planes in $\mathbb{C}^n$. ...
Matthew Pressland's user avatar
33 votes
2 answers
1k views

Analogies supporting heuristic: Weyl groups = algebraic groups over field with one element?

There is well-known heuristic that Weyl groups are reductive algebraic groups over "field with one element". Probably the best known analogy supporting that heuristic is the limit $q\to1$ ...
Alexander Chervov's user avatar
30 votes
5 answers
4k views

Deformation theory of representations of an algebraic group

For an algebraic group G and a representation V, I think it's a standard result (but I don't have a reference) that the obstruction to deforming V as a representation of G is an element of H2(G,V&...
Anton Geraschenko's user avatar
29 votes
2 answers
6k views

A precise statement of the categorical version of geometric Langlands conjecture

The statement of the ordinary non-categorical version of geometric Langlands conjecture, which was proven for GL(n) in around 2002 by Frenkel, Gaitsgory and Vilonen, is quite well-known and is easy to ...
Puraṭci Vinnani's user avatar
28 votes
2 answers
5k views

Status of (global) Langlands conjecture for $\mathrm{GL}_2$ over $\mathbb{Q}$

$\DeclareMathOperator\GL{GL}$Apologies if this question has already been dealt with on MO. I am wondering about the status of the global Langlands conjectures for $\GL_2$ over the rational numbers. ...
Masoud's user avatar
  • 283
28 votes
2 answers
3k views

Proofs of Beilinson-Bernstein

The Beilinson-Bernstein localization theorem states roughly that the category of $D$-modules on the flag variety $G/B$ is equivalent to the category of modules over the universal enveloping algebra $U\...
dhy's user avatar
  • 5,958
27 votes
5 answers
3k views

Why would one expect a derived equivalence of categories to hold?

This question is perhaps somewhat soft, but I'm hoping that someone could provide a useful heuristic. My interest in this question mainly concerns various derived equivalences arising in geometric ...
Chuck Hague's user avatar
  • 3,637
27 votes
3 answers
6k views

learning Deligne-Lusztig theory

Can someone give me a roadmap for learning Deligne-Lusztig theory? (Except for the original article by Deligne and Lusztig) Edit: You may assume knowledge of representation theory of finite groups (...
user avatar
27 votes
4 answers
3k views

Have people successfully worked with the full ring of differential operators in characteristic p?

This question is inspired by an earlier one about the possibility of using the full ring of differential operators on a flag variety to develop a theory of localization in characteristic $p$. (Here ...
Emerton's user avatar
  • 57.6k
26 votes
1 answer
2k views

Example of non-projective variety with non-semisimple Frobenius action on etale cohomology?

This question was motivated by a more general question raised by Jan Weidner here. In general one starts with a variety $X$ (say smooth) over an algebraic closure of a finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$ of ...
Jim Humphreys's user avatar
26 votes
1 answer
816 views

What are the points of simple algebraic groups over extensions of $\mathbb{F}_1$?

The "field with one element" $\mathbb{F}_1$ is, of course, a very speculative object. Nevertheless, some things about it seem to be generally agreed, even if the theory underpinning them is not; in ...
Gro-Tsen's user avatar
  • 32.5k
26 votes
2 answers
1k views

Groebner basis with group action

At one point my advisor, Mark Haiman, mentioned that it would be nice if there was a way to compute Groebner bases that takes into account a group action. Does anyone know of any work done along ...
Jonah Blasiak's user avatar
25 votes
3 answers
6k views

Introductory References for Geometric Representation Theory

Would anyone be able to recommend text books that give an introduction to Geometric Representation Theory and survey papers that give an outline of the work that has been done in the field? I'm ...
Siddharth Venkatesh's user avatar
25 votes
1 answer
1k views

How does one compute invariants of certain Grassmannians inside the regular representation?

Barry Mazur and I have come across the question below, motivated by (but independent of) issues regarding the Leopoldt conjecture. Suppose that $\mathbf{C}$ is the complex numbers. Let $H$ be a ...
user avatar
24 votes
2 answers
1k views

Lie groups generated by finitely many Lie algebra elements

Let $G$ be a connected Lie group with Lie algebra $\mathfrak{g}$. A standard fact is that $G$ is generated by $\exp(\mathfrak{g})$, i.e. every $g \in G$ can be written as $g=\exp(x_1)\cdots\exp(x_n)$ ...
Lorenz Haber's user avatar
24 votes
4 answers
7k views

Formal geometry

[Edit (June 20, 2010): I posted an answer to this which summarizes one that I received verbally a few weeks after posting this question. I hope it is useful to someone.] I am presently seeking ...
David Jordan's user avatar
  • 6,131
24 votes
0 answers
730 views

What is the status of a result of Kontsevich and Rosenberg?

In their influential paper Noncommutative Smooth Spaces (https://arxiv.org/abs/math/9812158), Kontsevich and Rosenberg define the notion of a noncommutative projective space. In Section 3.3 they ...
Adam Nyman's user avatar
23 votes
4 answers
4k views

What information is contained in the Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomials?

The Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomials contain all kinds of representation theoretic (and other kinds of) informations. For example the character of a simple module over a Lie algebra with Weyl group $W$ ...
22 votes
3 answers
2k views

Is SL(2,C)/SL(2,Z) a quasi-projective variety?

Consider the complex 3-fold $SL(2,\mathbb C)/SL(2,\mathbb Z)$ (just for clarity: note that $SL(2,\mathbb Z)$ acts without stabilizers, so this is a complex manifold, not a complex orbifold). Is $SL(...
John Pardon's user avatar
  • 18.7k
22 votes
2 answers
2k views

A royal road to Coulomb branches of 3D $\mathcal{N}=4$ gauge theories

So, I've been very interested recently with the developements of the (now mathematically precise) theory of Coulomb branches - in particular because of its recent applications on representation theory ...
jg1896's user avatar
  • 3,318
22 votes
4 answers
5k views

motivating geometric representation theory

I am wondering if there is a good motivation for geometric representation theory from within the questions of classical representation theory. In other words, I'd be curious to see something using ...
22 votes
2 answers
2k views

Quiver representations and coherent sheaves

I've heard that under certain assumptions on an algebraic variety $X$ there exist a quiver $Q$ for which there is an equivalence $$D^b(\mathsf{Coh}(X))\simeq D^b(\mathsf{Rep}(Q))$$ between the ...
user avatar
21 votes
5 answers
3k views

Why are coherent sheaves on $\Bbb P^1$ derived equivalent to representations of the Kronecker quiver?

I'm looking for an explanation or a reference to why there is this equivelence of triangulated categories: $${D}^b(\mathrm {Coh}(\Bbb P^1))\simeq {D}^b(\mathrm {Rep}(\bullet\rightrightarrows \bullet))$...
Ali Caglayan's user avatar
  • 1,185
21 votes
3 answers
7k views

What are the current breakthroughs of Geometric Complexity Theory?

I've read from Wikipedia about Geometric Complexity Theory (GCT) which (if I understood correctly) is a program for coping with the $ P=NP $ problem using algebraic methods. That program seems ...
21 votes
2 answers
2k views

Motivation behind the construction of Deligne and Lusztig

If $G$ is a connected reductive group over a finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$ and $T$ is a maximal torus in $G$, the famous construction of Deligne and Lusztig (Annals of Math, 1976) associates ...
senti_today's user avatar
  • 1,304
21 votes
3 answers
808 views

Examples when quantum $q$ equals to arithmetic $q$

First, as a disclaimer, I should say that this post is not about any specific propositions, but is more of some philosophical flavor. In the world of quantum mathematics, the letter $q$ is a standard ...
Estwald's user avatar
  • 1,391
21 votes
6 answers
2k views

How do I stop worrying about root systems and decomposition theorems (for reductive groups)?

I apologize for this being a very very vague question. Just as personal experience, I never feel that I fully grasped the theory of root systems in Lie algebras and Lie/algebraic groups (I shall ...
root's user avatar
  • 229
20 votes
7 answers
9k views

Elementary reference for algebraic groups

I'm looking for a reference on algebraic groups which requires only knowledge of basic material on the theory of varieties which you could find in, for example, Basic Algebraic Geometry 1 by ...
David Corwin's user avatar
  • 15.4k
20 votes
1 answer
2k views

LMS Lectures on Geometric Langlands

Everybody knows how insightful are David Ben-Zvi talks (and comments/answers here on mathoverflow). I was trying to watch the LMS 2007 Lecture Series on Geometric Langlands by David, supposedly made ...
Carlos's user avatar
  • 653
20 votes
1 answer
1k views

Is there a gerbe Beilinson-Bernstein Localization?

Suppose you want to construct a representation of an affine algebraic group $G$, you may start with a $G$-equivariant line bundle $\mathcal{L}$ on a $G$-manifold $X$ and then consider global sections, ...
Reimundo Heluani's user avatar
20 votes
1 answer
907 views

Semisimplicity for tensor products of representations of finite groups

Let $G$ be a group and $k$ a field of characteristic $p>0$. Let $$\rho_i: G\to GL(V_i),~ i=1,2$$ be two finite-dimensional semisimple $k$-representations of $G$, with $\dim(V_1)+\dim(V_2)<p+2.$ ...
Daniel Litt's user avatar
19 votes
3 answers
3k views

Algebraic Groups in Characteristic p

It is well-known that Lie groups are, under nice conditions, essentially determined by their Lie-algebras. What's the corresponding statement for algebraic groups over fields of finite characteristic?
JamesE's user avatar
  • 193
19 votes
2 answers
4k views

What does the nilpotent cone represent?

Notation Let $\mathfrak g$ be a the Lie algebra of an algebraic group $G\subseteq GL(V)$ over a(n algebraically closed) field $k$ (I'm actually thinking $G=GL_n$, so $\mathfrak g=\mathfrak{gl}_n$). ...
Anton Geraschenko's user avatar
19 votes
1 answer
758 views

What are the equations for $SL_3/SL_2$?

Consider $SL_2$ embedded into $SL_3$ as upper left block matrices. The quotient $SL_3/SL_2$ is an affine variety, as is any quotient of reductive groups. How does one describe $SL_3/SL_2$? What are ...
Question Machine's user avatar
19 votes
2 answers
3k views

Explaining Mukai-Fourier transforms physically

A core concept in mathematics, engineering, and physics is the Fourier Transform (FT) and its many variants (Generalized Fourier Series, Green's Function, Pontryagin duality). The basic algorithm is ...
Tom Copeland's user avatar
  • 10.5k
19 votes
2 answers
1k views

Explicit invariant of tensors nonvanishing on the diagonal

The group $SL_n \times SL_n \times SL_n$ acts naturally on the vector space $\mathbb C^n \otimes \mathbb C^n \otimes \mathbb C^n$ and has a rather large ring of polynomial invariants. The element $$\...
Will Sawin's user avatar
  • 148k
19 votes
2 answers
2k views

Dual versions of "folding" symmetric ADE Dynkin diagrams?

Start with the Dynkin diagram of an irreducible root system, typically associated with a simple Lie algebra over $\mathbb{C}$ or a simple algebraic group. Most of the simply-laced ADE diagrams ...
Jim Humphreys's user avatar
18 votes
4 answers
2k views

Origin of symbol *l* for a prime different from a fixed prime?

I've never seen an authoritative explanation for the choice of the lower case letter $\ell$ or $l$ to denote an arbitrary prime different from a given prime $p$. This now has its own LaTeX command \...
Jim Humphreys's user avatar
18 votes
1 answer
885 views

Why is Klein's representation of $PSL_2(\mathbb{F}_7)$ hard to obtain?

In his famous article [1] Klein constructs a representation of $G=PSL_2(\mathbb{F}_7)$ in $\mathbb{C}^3$ (of which the first invariant polynomial of three variables gives rise to the famous Klein's ...
Reimundo Heluani's user avatar
18 votes
3 answers
1k views

What is the Zariski closure of the space of semisimple Lie algebras?

Given Leonid Positselski's excellent answer and comments to this question, I expect that the present one is a hard question. Recall that the Lie algebra structures on a (finite-dimensional over $\...
Theo Johnson-Freyd's user avatar

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