We will use the combinatorics of the G-stable pieces to describe the closure relation of the partition of partial flag varieties in [L3, section 4].

In this paper, we give a uniform construction of irreducible genuine characters of the Pin cover W of a Weyl group W, and put them into the context of theory of Springer representations. In the process, we provide a direct connection between Springer theory, via Green polynomials, the irreducible representations of W, and an extended Dirac operator for graded Hecke algebras. We also introduce a q-elliptic pairing for W with respect to the reflection representation V. These constructions are of independent interest. The q-elliptic pairing is a generalization of the elliptic pairing of W introduced by Reeder, and it is also related to S. Kato's notion of (graded) Kostka systems for the semidirect product A W= C [W] S (V).

Suppose G is a reductive algebraic group, T is a Cartan subgroup of G, N= Norm (T), and W= N/T is the Weyl group. If w W has order d, it is natural to ask about the orders lifts of w to N. It is straightforward to see that the minimal order of a lift of w has order d or 2d, but it can be a subtle question which holds. We first consider the question of when W itself lifts to a subgroup of N (in which case every element of W lifts to an element of N of the same order). We then consider two natural classes of elements: regular and elliptic. In the latter case all lifts of w are conjugate, and therefore have the same order. We also consider the twisted case.

We reduce some key calculations of compositions of morphisms between Soergel bimodules (" Soergel calculus") to calculations in the nil Hecke ring (" Schubert calculus"). This formula has several applications in modular representation theory.

We give a new description of the set {m Adm}(\mu) of admissible alcoves as an intersection of certain``obtuse cones''of alcoves, and we show this description may be given by imposing conditions vertexwise. We use this to prove the vertexwise admissibility conjecture of Pappas-Rapoport-Smithling. The same idea gives simple proofs of two ingredients used in the proof of the Kottwitz-Rapoport conjecture on existence of crystals with additional structure.

We prove that the DeligneLusztig variety associated to minimal length elements in any <i></i>-conjugacy class of the Weyl group is affine, which was conjectured by Orlik and Rapoport in [S. Orlik, M. Rapoport, DeligneLusztig varieties and period domains over finite fields, arXiv: 0705.1646].

Let G be a semisimple group over an algebraically closed field. Steinberg has associated to a Coxeter element G of minimal length G a subvariety G of G isomorphic to an affine space of dimension G which meets the regular unipotent class G in exactly one point. In this paper this is generalized to the case where G is replaced by any elliptic element in the Weyl group of minimal length G in its conjugacy class, G is replaced by a subvariety G of G isomorphic to an affine space of dimension G , and G is replaced by a unipotent class G of codimension G in such a way that the intersection of G and G is finite.

The unipotent variety of a reductive algebraic group G plays an important role in the representation theory. In this paper, we will consider the closure U of the unipotent variety in the De ConciniProcesi compactification G of a connected simple algebraic group G. We will prove that U-U is a union of some G-stable pieces introduced by Lusztig in [Moscow Math. J 4 (2004) 869896]. This was first conjectured by Lusztig. We will also give an explicit description of U. It turns out that similar results hold for the closure of any Steinberg fiber in G.

We give a geometric proof that any minimal length element in a (twisted) conjugacy class of a finite Coxeter group W has remarkable properties with respect to conjugation, taking powers in the associated braid monoid and taking the centralizer in W.

Let W be an extended affine Weyl group. We prove that the minimal length elements W of any conjugacy class W of W satisfy some nice properties, generalizing results of Geck and Pfeiffer [<i>On the irreducible characters of Hecke algebras</i>, Adv. Math. <b>102</b> (1993), 7994] on finite Weyl groups. We also study a special class of conjugacy classes, the straight conjugacy classes. These conjugacy classes are in a natural bijection with the Frobenius-twisted conjugacy classes of some W -adic group and satisfy additional interesting properties. Furthermore, we discuss some applications to the affine Hecke algebra W