Weights of Markov traces and generic degrees (Q5935911)

The authors recall the definition of a Markov trace for the Ariki-Koike algebra as introduced by Lambropoulou and others, and prove a conjecture of Iancu about the weights of such traces (Theorem 1.3). They also obtain as a consequence a proof of a conjecture of Malle (Corollary 1.5) on the weights for a particular trace (the canonical symmetrizing trace) of the Ariki-Koike algebra; this has applications to the representation theory of finite reductive groups. The results are also important for the construction of unipotent degrees for ``spetses'', which are mysterious conjectural objects generalizing the notion of algebraic groups.