A vanishing theorem for Dirac cohomology of standard modules (Q1688634)

The Dirac operator plays a key role in the representation theory for real reductive groups. It was used for geometric constructions of discrete series by \textit{R. Parthasarathy} [Ann. Math. (2) 96, 1--30 (1972; Zbl 0249.22003)] and \textit{M. Atiyah} and \textit{W. Schmid} [Invent. Math. 42, 1--62 (1977; Zbl 0373.22001)]. The notion of Dirac cohomology was introduced by Vogan around 1997 along with a conjecture related to the infinitesimal characters of Harish-Chandra modules. This article studies the Dirac cohomology of standard modules in the setting of graded Hecke algebras with geometric parameters. The author proves that the Dirac cohomology of a standard module vanishes if and only if the module is not twisted-elliptically tempered. The proof heavily relies on two deep results. One is some structural information from the generalized Springer correspondence obtained by S. Kato and Lusztig. Another one is a computation of the Dirac cohomology of tempered modules by \textit{D. Barbasch} et al. [Acta Math. 209, No. 2, 197--227 (2012; Zbl 1276.20004)], \textit{D. Ciubotaru} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 671, 199--222 (2012; Zbl 1272.17012)] and \textit{D. Ciubotaru} and \textit{P. E. Trapa} [Adv. Math. 227, No. 4, 1585--1611 (2011; Zbl 1241.22018)]. The author also applies his result to compute the Dirac cohomology of ladder representations for the type \(A_n\). For each of such representations with non-zero Dirac cohomology, he associates it to a canonical Weyl group representation. Finally, he uses the Dirac cohomology to conclude that such representations appear with multiplicity one.