On the Betti numbers of Springer fibers for classical types (Q1981144)

Let \(G\) be a connected reductive group over \(\overline{\mathbb{F}_q}\) where \(q\) is a power of some prime \(p\) and let \(W\) be its Weyl group. Let \(\mathfrak{g}\) be the Lie algebra of \(G\). For \(p\) and \(q\) sufficiently large, \textit{T. A. Springer} [Invent. Math. 36, 173--207 (1976; Zbl 0374.20054)] defined the action of \(W\) on the cohomology groups of the Springer fiber \(\mathcal{B}_N\) of any nilpotent element \(N \in \mathfrak{g}\) defined over \(\mathbb{F}_q\). Using the theory of perverse sheaves, \textit{G. Lusztig} [Adv. Math. 42, 169--178 (1981; Zbl 0473.20029)] removed the condition on \(p\) and \(q\). Now suppose that \(G\) is of classical type and split over \(\mathbb{F}_q\). When \(G\) is of type \(A\), its Springer representations are explicitly determined in terms of Green polynomials. When \(G\) is of type \(B\), \(C\), or \(D\) and \(p>2\) is a prime, then its Springer representations are also described by some polynomials, which are now called Green functions. Therefore, when \(N \in \mathfrak{g}\) is a nilpotent element fixed by the standard Frobenius morphism \(F\), then the eigenvalues of \(F^*\) on each \(H^i(\mathcal{B}_N)\) is given by \(\pm q^j\) for some \(j \in \mathbb{N}\). For a Weyl group \(W\) of classical type, the author presents a formula to calculate the restriction of graded Springer representations of \(W\) to a maximal parabolic subgroup \(W'\), where the types of \(W\) and \(W'\) are in the same series. The author thus obtains recursive formulas for the Betti numbers of Springer fibers for classical types. This method is useful in practice since it is faster than Shoji and Lusztig's algorithm, which is calculating Green functions using character sheaves and their orthogonality, if they want to calculate only the Betti numbers of Springer fibers, not all the cohomology groups as the representations of corresponding Weyl groups.