Talks

After the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN has turned from a discovery machine to a precision machine. The highly boosted events measured by the LHC experiments are, for the first time, providing us a window on the details of the electroweak symmetry breaking mechanism. A crucial condition to maximise the reach of these studies is a profound understanding of the theoretical implications of perturbative Quantum Field Theory, and in particular of Quantum ChromoDynamics (QCD), for the physics of hadronic collisions at the LHC. In this talk, I will provide an account of the opportunities and the challenges that precision physics at the LHC can offer, focusing in particular on the recent developments in our understanding of higher order calculations in perturbative Quantum Field Theory and how they can help us understand the Higgs sector of the Standard Model.

Hessenberg varieties are a distinguished family of projective varieties associated to a semisimple complex algebraic group. We use the formalism of perverse sheaves to study their cohomology rings. We give a partial characterization, in terms of the Springer correspondence, of the irreducible representations which appear in the action of the Weyl group on the cohomology ring of a regular semisimple Hessenberg variety. We also prove a support theorem for the universal family of regular Hessenberg varieties, and we deduce that its fibers, though not necessarily smooth, always have the "Kahler package". This is joint work with Peter Crooks.

Categorical representation theory is filled with graded additive categories (defined by generators and relations) whose Grothendieck groups are algebras over \mathbb{Z}[q,q^{-1}]. For example, Khovanov-Lauda-Rouquier (KLR) algebras categorify the quantum group, and the diagrammatic Hecke categories categorify Hecke algebras. Khovanov introduced Hopfological algebra in 2006 as a method to potentially categorify the specialization of these \mathbb{Z}[q,q^{-1}]-algebras at q = \zeta_n a root of unity. The schtick is this: one equips the category (e.g. the KLR algebra) with a derivation d of degree 2, which satisfies d^p = 0 after specialization to characteristic p, making this specialization into a p-dg algebra. The p-dg Grothendieck group of a p-dg algebra is automatically a module over \mathbb{Z}[\zeta_{2p}]... but it is NOT automatically the specialization of the ordinary Grothendieck group at a root of unity! Upgrading the categorification to a p-dg algebra was done for quantum groups by Qi-Khovanov and Qi-Elias. Recently, Qi-Elias accomplished the task for the diagrammatic Hecke algebra in type A, and ruled out the possibility for most other types. Now the question is: what IS the p-dg Grothendieck group? Do you get the quantum group/hecke algebra at a root of unity, or not? This is a really hard question, and currently the only techniques for establishing such a result involve explicit knowledge of all the important idempotents in the category. These techniques sufficed for quantum \mathfrak{sl}_n with n \le 3, but new techniques are required to make further progress. After reviewing the theory of p-dg algebras and their Grothendieck groups, we will present some new techniques and conjectures, which we hope will blow your mind. Everything is joint with You Qi.

For quantum groups at a root of unity, there is a web of theorems (due to Bezrukavnikov and Ostrik, and relying on work of Lusztig) connecting the following topics: (i) tilting modules; (ii) vector bundles on nilpotent orbits; and (iii) Kazhdan–Lusztig cells in the affine Weyl group. In this talk, I will review these results, and I will explain a (partly conjectural) analogous picture for reductive algebraic groups over fields of positive characteristic, inspired by a conjecture of Humphreys. This is joint work with W. Hardesty and S. Riche.

Koszul duality, as conceived by Beilinson-Ginzburg-Soergel, describes a remarkable symmetry in the representation theory of Langlands dual reductive groups. Geometrically, Koszul duality can be stated as an equivalence of categories of mixed (motivic) sheaves on flag varieties. In this talk, I will argue that there should be an an 'ungraded' version of Koszul duality between monodromic constructible sheaves and equivariant K-motives on flag varieties. For this, I will explain what K-motives are and present preliminary results.