Let $G$ be a split connected reductive group over a finite field of characteristic $p > 2$ such that $G_\text {der}$ is absolutely almost simple. We give a geometric construction of perverse $\mathbb {F}_p$-sheaves on the Iwahori affine flag variety of $G$ which are central with respect to the convolution product. We deduce an explicit formula for an isomorphism from the spherical mod $p$ Hecke algebra to the center of the Iwahori mod $p$ Hecke algebra. We also give a formula for the central integral Bernstein elements in the Iwahori mod $p$ Hecke algebra. To accomplish these goals we construct a nearby cycles functor for perverse $\mathbb {F}_p$-sheaves and we use Frobenius splitting techniques to prove some properties of this functor. We also prove that certain equal characteristic analogues of local models of Shimura varieties are strongly $F$-regular, and hence they are $F$-rational and have pseudo-rational singularities.

Vanishing cycles, introduced over half a century ago, are a fundamental tool for studying the topology of complex hypersurface singularity germs, as well as the change in topology of a degenerating family of projective manifolds. More recently, vanishing cycles have found deep applications in enumerative geometry, representation theory, applied algebraic geometry, birational geometry, etc. In this survey, we introduce vanishing cycles from a topological perspective and discuss some of their applications.

For a variety with a Whitney stratification by affine spaces, we study categories of motivic sheaves which are constant mixed Tate along the strata. We are particularly interested in those cases where the category of mixed Tate motives over a point is equivalent to the category of finite-dimensional bigraded vector spaces. Examples of such situations include rational motives on varieties over finite fields and modules over the spectrum representing the semisimplification of de Rham cohomology for varieties over the complex numbers. We show that our categories of stratified mixed Tate motives have a natural weight structure. Under an additional assumption of pointwise purity for objects of the heart, tilting gives an equivalence between stratified mixed Tate sheaves and the bounded homotopy category of the heart of the weight structure. Specializing to the case of flag varieties, we find natural geometric interpretations of graded category ${\mathcal{O}}$ and Koszul duality.

Let $k=\mathbb{C}$ be the field of complex numbers. In this article we construct Hodge realization functors defined on the triangulated categories of étale motives with rational coefficients. Our construction extends to every smooth quasi-projective $k$-scheme, the construction done by Nori over a field, and relies on the original version of the basic lemma proved by Beĭlinson. As in the case considered by Nori, the realization functor factors through the bounded derived category of a perverse version of the Abelian category of Nori motives.

This paper deals with the geometric local theta correspondence at the Iwahori level for dual reductive pairs of type II over a non-Archimedean field $F$ of characteristic $p\neq 2$ in the framework of the geometric Langlands program. First we construct and study the geometric version of the invariants of the Weil representation of the Iwahori-Hecke algebras. In the particular case of $(\mathbf{GL}_{1},\mathbf{GL}_{m})$ we give a complete geometric description of the corresponding category. The second part of the paper deals with geometric local Langlands functoriality at the Iwahori level in a general setting. Given two reductive connected groups $G$ and $H$ over $F$, and a morphism ${\check{G}}\times \text{SL}_{2}\rightarrow \check{H}$ of Langlands dual groups, we construct a bimodule over the affine extended Hecke algebras of $H$ and $G$ that should realize the geometric local Arthur–Langlands functoriality at the Iwahori level. Then, we propose a conjecture describing the geometric local theta correspondence at the Iwahori level constructed in the first part in terms of this bimodule, and we prove our conjecture for pairs $(\mathbf{GL}_{1},\mathbf{GL}_{m})$.

The goal of this paper is to prove that if certain ‘standard’ conjectures on motives over algebraically closed fields hold, then over any ‘reasonable’ scheme $S$ there exists a motivic$t$-structure for the category $\text{DM}_{c}(S)$ of relative Voevodsky’s motives (to be more precise, for the Beilinson motives described by Cisinski and Deglise). If $S$ is of finite type over a field, then the heart of this $t$-structure (the category of mixed motivic sheaves over $S$) is endowed with a weight filtration with semisimple factors. We also prove a certain ‘motivic decomposition theorem’ (assuming the conjectures mentioned) and characterize semisimple motivic sheaves over $S$ in terms of those over its residue fields. Our main tool is the theory of weight structures. We actually prove somewhat more than the existence of a weight filtration for mixed motivic sheaves: we prove that the motivic $t$-structure is transversal to the Chow weight structure for $\text{DM}_{c}(S)$ (that was introduced previously by Hébert and the author). We also deduce several properties of mixed motivic sheaves from this fact. Our reasoning relies on the degeneration of Chow weight spectral sequences for ‘perverse étale homology’ (which we prove unconditionally); this statement also yields the existence of the Chow weight filtration for such (co)homology that is strictly restricted by (‘motivic’) morphisms.

We prove an analogue of Koszul duality for category $ \mathcal{O} $ of a reductive group $G$ in positive characteristic $\ell $ larger than $1$ plus the number of roots of $G$. However, there are no Koszul rings, and we do not prove an analogue of the Kazhdan–Lusztig conjectures in this context. The main technical result is the formality of the dg-algebra of extensions of parity sheaves on the flag variety if the characteristic of the coefficients is at least the number of roots of $G$ plus $2$.

For a Whitney stratification S of a space X (or, more generally, a topological stratification in the sense of Goresky and MacPherson) we introduce the notion of an S-constructible stack of categories on X. The motivating example is the stack of S-constructible perverse sheaves. We introduce a 2-category EP≤2(X,S), called the exit-path 2-category, which is a natural stratified version of the fundamental 2-groupoid. Our main result is that the 2-category of S-constructible stacks on X is equivalent to the 2-category of 2-functors 2Funct(EP≤2(X,S),Cat) from the exit-path 2-category to the 2-category of small categories.

For a fixed parabolic subalgebra 𝔭 of we prove that the centre of the principal block 𝒪0𝔭 of the parabolic category 𝒪 is naturally isomorphic to the cohomology ring H*(ℬ𝔭) of the corresponding Springer fibre. We give a diagrammatic description of 𝒪0𝔭 for maximal parabolic 𝔭 and give an explicit isomorphism to Braden’s description of the category PervB(G(k,n)) of Schubert-constructible perverse sheaves on Grassmannians. As a consequence Khovanov’s algebra ℋn is realised as the endomorphism ring of some object from PervB(G(n,n)) which corresponds under localisation and the Riemann–Hilbert correspondence to a full projective–injective module in the corresponding category 𝒪0𝔭. From there one can deduce that Khovanov’s tangle invariants are obtained from the more general functorial invariants in [C. Stroppel, Categorification of the Temperley Lieb category, tangles, and cobordisms via projective functors, Duke Math. J. 126(3) (2005), 547–596] by restriction.

We compute the category of perverse sheaves on Hermitian symmetric spaces in types $\text{A}$ and $\text{D}$, constructible with respect to the Schubert stratification. The calculation is microlocal, and uses the action of the Borel group to study the geometry of the conormal variety $\Lambda$.

It was proved by Ginzburg, Mirkovic and Vilonen that the G(O)-equivariant perverse sheaves on the affine Grassmannian of a connected reductive group G form a tensor category equivalent to the tensor category of finite dimensional representations of the dual group G∧. In this paper we construct explicitly the action of G∧ on the global cohomology of a perverse sheaf.

We present a microlocal version of the Riemann–Hilbert correspondence for regular holonomic $\cal D$-modules. We show that a regular holonomic system of microdifferential equations is associated to a perverse sheaf concentrated in degree 0. Moreover, we show that this perverse sheaf can be recovered from the local system it determines on the complementary of its singular locus. We characterize the classes of perverse sheaves and local systems associated to regular holonomic systems of microdifferential equations.

We prove that the Sebastiani–Thom isomorphism for Milnor fibres and their monodromies exists as a natural isomorphism between vanishing cycles in the derived category.