Compactification of Deligne-Lusztig varieties (Q1013026)

Let \(G\) be a connected reductive group defined over the algebraic closure of a finite field, and let \(F:G \to G\) denote an isogeny of \(G\) of which some power is a (standard) Frobenius morphism. Let \(T\) be a maximal \(F\)-stable torus of \(G\), and let \(W\) denote the Weyl group of \(G\). Then to any element \(w \in W\) we can associate two Deligne-Lusztig varieties \(X(w)\) and \(Y(w)\) and a finite étale morphism \(Y(w) \to X(w)\) making \(X(w)\) a quotient of \(Y(w)\) by the action of \(T^F\), [see \textit{P. Deligne} and \textit{G. Lusztig}, Ann. Math. (2) 103, 103--161 (1976; Zbl 0336.20029)]. In [loc. cit.], Deligne and Lusztig construct a smooth compactification \(\overline{X}(w)\) of \(X(w)\); the main purpose of this paper is to give an explicit construction of the normalization \(\overline{Y}(w)\) of \(\overline{X}(w)\) in \(Y(w)\). The explicit nature of this construction allows the authors to give many properties of \(\overline{Y}(w)\), as well as to deduce a new proof of Lemme 9.11 of [loc. cit.], which is a key part of the proof of the Macdonald conjectures associating an irreducible representation of \(G^F\) to a character in general position of \(T^F\).