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.

We prove a conjecture of Miemietz and Kashiwara on canonical bases and branching rules of affine Hecke algebras of type D. The proof is similar to the proof of the type B case in Varagnolo and Vasserot (in press) [15].

We characterize the indecomposable injective objects in the category of finitely presented representations of an interval finite quiver.

A finite directed category is a k-linear category with finitely many objects and an underlying poset structure, where k is an algebraically closed field. This concept unifies structures such as k-linerizations of posets and finite EI categories, quotient algebras of finite-dimensional hereditary algebras, triangular matrix algebras, etc. In this paper we study representations of finite directed categories, discuss their stratification properties, and show the existence of generalized APR tilting modules for triangular matrix algebras under some assumptions.

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.