We develop spectral theory for the generator of the $q$-Boson (stochastic) particle system. Our central result is a Plancherel type isomorphism theorem for this system. This theorem has various implications. It proves the completeness of the Bethe ansatz for the $q$-Boson generator and consequently enables us to solve the Kolmogorov forward and backward equations for general initial data. Owing to a Markov duality with $q$-TASEP ($q$-deformed totally asymmetric simple exclusion process), this leads to moment formulas which characterize the fixed time distribution of $q$-TASEP started from general initial conditions. The theorem also implies the biorthogonality of the left and right eigenfunctions. We consider limits of our $q$-Boson results to a discrete delta Bose gas considered previously by van Diejen, as well as to another discrete delta Bose gas that describes the evolution of moments of the semi-discrete stochastic heat equation (or equivalently, the O’Connell–Yor semi-discrete directed polymer partition function). A further limit takes us to the delta Bose gas which arises in studying moments of the stochastic heat equation/Kardar–Parisi–Zhang equation.

Kloosterman sums for a finite field $\mathbb{F}_{p}$ arise as Frobenius trace functions of certain local systems defined over $\mathbb{G}_{m,\mathbb{F}_{p}}$. The moments of Kloosterman sums calculate the Frobenius traces on the cohomology of tensor powers (or symmetric powers, exterior powers, etc.) of these local systems. We show that when $p$ ranges over all primes, the moments of the corresponding Kloosterman sums for $\mathbb{F}_{p}$ arise as Frobenius traces on a continuous $\ell$-adic representation of $\text{Gal}(\overline{\mathbb{Q}}/\mathbb{Q})$ that comes from geometry. We also give bounds on the ramification of these Galois representations. All of this is done in the generality of Kloosterman sheaves attached to reductive groups introduced by Heinloth, Ngô and Yun [Ann. of Math. (2) 177 (2013), 241–310]. As an application, we give proofs of conjectures of Evans [Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 138 (2010), 517–531; Israel J. Math. 175 (2010), 349–362] expressing the seventh and eighth symmetric power moments of the classical Kloosterman sum in terms of Fourier coefficients of explicit modular forms. The proof for the eighth symmetric power moment conjecture relies on the computation done in Appendix B by C. Vincent.

This paper develops a general theory of canonical bases and how they arise naturally in the context of categorification. As an application, we show that Lusztig’s canonical basis in the whole quantized universal enveloping algebra is given by the classes of the indecomposable 1-morphisms in a categorification when the associated Lie algebra is of finite type and simply laced. We also introduce natural categories whose Grothendieck groups correspond to the tensor products of lowest- and highest-weight integrable representations. This generalizes past work of the author’s in the highest-weight case.

Let ${\rm\Gamma}(n,p)$ denote the binomial model of a random triangular group. We show that there exist constants $c,C>0$ such that if $p\leqslant c/n^{2}$, then asymptotically almost surely (a.a.s.) ${\rm\Gamma}(n,p)$ is free, and if $p\geqslant C\log n/n^{2}$, then a.a.s. ${\rm\Gamma}(n,p)$ has Kazhdan’s property (T). Furthermore, we show that there exist constants $C^{\prime },c^{\prime }>0$ such that if $C^{\prime }/n^{2}\leqslant p\leqslant c^{\prime }\log n/n^{2}$, then a.a.s. ${\rm\Gamma}(n,p)$ is neither free nor has Kazhdan’s property (T).

Let $(G,G^{\prime })$ be a type I irreducible reductive dual pair in Sp$(W_{\mathbb{R}})$. We assume that $(G,G^{\prime })$ is in the stable range where $G$ is the smaller member. Let $K$ and $K^{\prime }$ be maximal compact subgroups of $G$ and $G^{\prime }$ respectively. Let $\mathfrak{g}=\mathfrak{k}\bigoplus \mathfrak{p}$ and $\mathfrak{g}^{\prime }=\mathfrak{k}^{\prime }\bigoplus \mathfrak{p}^{\prime }$ be the complexified Cartan decompositions of the Lie algebras of $G$ and $G^{\prime }$ respectively. Let $\widetilde{K}$ and $\widetilde{K}^{\prime }$ be the inverse images of $K$ and $K^{\prime }$ in the metaplectic double cover $\widetilde{\text{Sp}}(W_{\mathbb{R}})$ of Sp$(W_{\mathbb{R}})$. Let ${\it\rho}$ be a genuine irreducible $(\mathfrak{g},\widetilde{K})$-module. Our first main result is that if ${\it\rho}$ is unitarizable, then except for one special case, the full local theta lift ${\it\rho}^{\prime }={\rm\Theta}({\it\rho})$ is equal to the local theta lift ${\it\theta}({\it\rho})$. Thus excluding the special case, the full theta lift ${\it\rho}^{\prime }$ is an irreducible and unitarizable $(\mathfrak{g}^{\prime },\widetilde{K}^{\prime })$-module. Our second main result is that the associated variety and the associated cycle of ${\it\rho}^{\prime }$ are the theta lifts of the associated variety and the associated cycle of the contragredient representation ${\it\rho}^{\ast }$ respectively. Finally we obtain some interesting $(\mathfrak{g},\widetilde{K})$-modules whose $\widetilde{K}$-spectrums are isomorphic to the spaces of global sections of some vector bundles on some nilpotent $K_{\mathbb{C}}$-orbits in $\mathfrak{p}^{\ast }$.