Special representations and the two-dimensional McKay correspondence (Q1424051)

The McKay correspondence establishes a bijection between non-trivial irreducible representations of a finite subgroup \(\Gamma\) of \(\text{SL}(2,\mathbb{C})\) and irreducible components of the exceptional divisor of the minimal resolution of the quotient surface singularity \(X_\Gamma:= \mathbb{C}^2/\Gamma\). This was discovered by J. McKay around 1980, using a rather formal approach. There was much subsequent work trying to give a more geometric description of the procedure. Among others, there were relevant contributions of Gonzalez-Springerg, Verdier, Esnault, Artin, working with suitable auxiliary reflexive sheaves. Later Itô and Nakamura used certain Hilbert schemes of zero-dimensional subschemes of the plane and Kapranov and Vasserot introduced suitable derived categories to describe the correspondence. Also attempts were made to generalize the theory. For instance, Riemenschneider conjectured that a similar correspondence could be obtained by using certain finite subgroups of \(\text{GL}(2,\mathbb{C})\) (namely, the small ones, i.e. those freely acting on \(\mathbb{C}^2-(0, 0)\)) and certain representations thereof (the so-called special ones). The conjecture was proved by \textit{A. Ishii} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 549, 221--233 (2002; Zbl 1057.14057)], using Hilbert schemes and derived categories techniques. In the present article, the author reviews these and other developments and shows that for a cyclic quotient singularity Ishii's theorem can be proved relatively easily [by using results of \textit{R. Kidoh}, Hokkaido Math. J. 30, No. 1, 91--103 (2001; Zbl 1015.14004)]. The author also presents a theorem giving several equivalent characterizations of the notion of special representation. These results had been obtained by the author several years ago, but had not been presented in a mathematical journal before. The author also proposes a problem, namely to describe the deformation theory of \(X_\Gamma\) in terms of representations of \(\Gamma\). He announces some partial results in this direction.