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 give a definition of character sheaves on the group compactification which is equivalent to Lusztig's definition in [G. Lusztig, Parabolic character sheaves, II, Mosc. Math. J. 4 (4) (2004) 869896]. We also prove some properties of the character sheaves on the group compactification.

Soit G un groupe algbrique complexe quasi-simple et G/P une varit de drapeaux partiels. La projection sur G/P des varits de Richardson (de la varit des drapeaux complets) forment une stratification de G/P. Nous montrons que les relations dadhrence des varits de Richardson projetes correspondent celles dun certain sous-ensemble de varits de Schubert sur la varit de drapeaux affine de G. Nous comparons aussi les classes de cohomologie quivariante et de K-thorie de ces deux stratifications. Notre travail gnralise celui de Knutson, Lam et Speyer pour la grassmannienne de type A.

We study the set of connected components of certain unions of affine Deligne-Lusztig varieties arising from the study of Shimura varieties. We determine the set of connected components for basic $\s $-conjugacy classes. As an application, we verify the Axioms in\cite {HR} for certain PEL type Shimura varieties. We also show that for any nonbasic $\s $-conjugacy class in a residually split group, the set of connected components is" controlled" by the set of straight elements associated to the $\s $-conjugacy class, together with the obstruction from the corresponding Levi subgroup. Combined with\cite {Zhou}, this allows one to verify in the residually split case, the description of the mod- p isogeny classes on Shimura varieties conjectured by Langland and Rapoport. Along the way, we determine the Picard group of the Witt vector affine Grassmannian of\cite {BS} and\cite {Zhu} which is of independent interest.