We show that the product in the quantum K-ring of a generalized flag manifold G/P involves only finitely many powers of the Novikov variables. In contrast to previous approaches to this finiteness question, we exploit the finite difference module structure of quantum K-theory. At the core of the proof is a bound on the asymptotic growth of the J-function, which in turn comes from an analysis of the singularities of the zastava spaces studied in geometric representation theory. An appendix by H. Iritani establishes the equivalence between finiteness and a quadratic growth condition on certain shift operators.

We prove that every finite group$G$can be realized as the group of self-homotopy equivalences of infinitely many elliptic spaces$X$. To construct those spaces we introduce a new technique which leads, for example, to the existence of infinitely many inflexible manifolds. Further applications to representation theory will appear in a separate paper.

We study a local multiplicity problem related to so-called generalized Shalika models. By establishing a local trace formula for these kind of models, we are able to prove a multiplicity formula for discrete series. As a result, we can show that these multiplicities are constant over every discrete Vogan L-packet and are related to local exterior square L-functions.

We study categories associated to a decorated marked surface S_△, which is obtained from an unpunctured marked surface S by adding a set of decorating points. For any triangulation T of S_△, let Γ_T be the associated Ginzburg dg algebra. We show that there is a bijection between reachable open arcs in S_△ and the reachable rigid indecomposables in the perfect derived category perΓ_T. This is the dual of the bijection, between simple closed arcs in S_△ and reachable spherical objects in the 3-Calabi-Yau category D_{fd}(ΓT), constructed in the prequel (Qiu in Math Ann 365:595–633, 2016). Moreover, we show that Amiot’s quotient perΓ_T/D_{fd}(ΓT) that defines the generalized cluster categories corresponds to the forgetful map S_△→S (forgetting the decorating points) in a suitable sense.

Following our previous work \cite{HLY}, we introduce the notions of partial seed homomorphisms and partial ideal rooted cluster morphisms. Related to the theory of Green's equivalences, the isomorphism classes of sub-rooted cluster algebras of a rooted cluster algebra are corresponded one-by-one to the regular $\mathcal D$-classes of the semigroup consisting of partial seed endomorphisms of the initial seed. Moreover, for a rooted cluster algebra from a Riemannian surface, they are also corresponded to the isomorphism classes of the so-called paunched surfaces.