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This paper is a contribution to the general problem of giving an explicit description of the basic locus in the reduction modulo $p$ of Shimura varieties. Motivated by \cite{Vollaard-Wedhorn} and \cite{Rapoport-Terstiege-Wilson}, we classify the cases where the basic locus is (in a natural way) the union of classical Deligne-Lusztig sets associated to Coxeter elements. We show that if this is satisfied, then the Newton strata and Ekedahl-Oort strata have many nice properties.

In this paper, we prove a conjecture of Kottwitz and Rapoport on a union of (generalized) affine Deligne-Lusztig varieties $X(\mu, b)_J$ for a $p$-adic group $G$ and its parahoric subgroup $P_J$. We show that $X(\mu, b)_J \neq \emptyset$ if and only if the group-theoretic version of Mazur's inequality is satisfied. In the process, we obtain a generalization of Grothendieck's conjecture on the closure relation of $\s$-conjugacy classes of a twisted loop group.

We prove that in the unramified case, local models of Shimura varieties with Iwahori level structure are normal and Cohen Macaulay.

We study affine Deligne-Lusztig varieties in the affine flag manifold of an algebraic group, and in particular the question, which affine Deligne-Lusztig varieties are non-empty. Under mild assumptions on the group, we provide a complete answer to this question in terms of the underlying affine root system. In particular, this proves the corresponding conjecture for split groups stated in \cite{GHKR2}. The question of non-emptiness of affine Deligne-Lusztig varieties is closely related to the relationship between certain natural stratifications of moduli spaces of abelian varieties in positive characteristic.