Affine Beilinson-Bernstein localization at the critical level for \(\mathrm{GL}_2\) (Q2078804)

The paper under review proves an important special case of a conjecture of Frenkel and Gaitsgory on an affine analogue of the Beilinson-Bernstein localization theorem. To provide a context of the main theorem, let us first discuss the Beilinson--Bernstein theorem. Let \(G\) be a reductive group, \(B\) be a Borel subgroup, and \(\mathfrak{g}\) and \(\mathfrak{b}\) be their Lie algebras, respectively. One of the central problems in the subject of representation theory is to classify representations of \(\mathfrak{g}\). As the center \(Z(\mathfrak{g})\) of the universal enveloping algebra \(U(\mathfrak g)\) acts through a character, called a central character, one may as well fix the central character. Then one is led to the study of the category \(\mathfrak g\text{-mod}_0\) of representations of \(U(\mathfrak{g})\) with the central character being the same as the trivial representation. Consider the flag variety \(G/B\) and the category \(D(G/B)\) of D-modules on it. For an object \(M \in D(G/B)\), its space \(\Gamma (G/B,M)\) of global sections has an induced action of \(\mathfrak{g}\) and one can check that it has the same central character as the trivial representation. Then the celebrated Beilinson-Bernstein localization theorem says that the functor \[ \Gamma \colon D(G/B)\to \mathfrak{g}\text{-mod}_0 \] is in fact an equivalence of abelian and derived categories. For an affine analogue, consider an affine Kac-Moody algebra \(\widehat{\mathfrak{g}}_\kappa \) where \(\kappa\) is a level, or a symmetric invariant bilinear form on \(\mathfrak{g}\). Feigin and Frenkel proved that the center \(Z(\widehat{\mathfrak{g}}_{\kappa }):= Z(U(\widehat{\mathfrak{g}}_\kappa ))\) of the universal enveloping algebra \(U(\widehat{\mathfrak{g}}_\kappa )\) is trivial unless \(\kappa\) is the critical level. Moreover, they identified the center at the critical level in terms of the Langlands dual group \(\check{G}\) and exhibited the following commutative diagrams: \begin{center} \begin{tikzpicture} \draw [-, thick] (0,1.5) to (0,0.5) ; \draw [-, thick] (3,1.5) to (3,0.5) ; \draw [->>, thick] (1,2) to (2,2) ; \draw [->>, thick] (1,0) to (2,0) ; \node at (-0.5,1) {\( \cong \)}; \node at (3.5,1) {\( \cong \)}; \node at (0,0) {\(\text{Fun}(\text{Op}_{\check{G}} )\)}; \node at (3,0) {\(\text{Fun}( \text{Op}_{\check{G}}^{\text{reg}})\)}; \node at (0,2) {\(Z(\widehat{\mathfrak{g}}_{\text{crit}})\)}; \node at (3,2) {\(\text{End}(\mathbb{V}_{\text{crit}})\)}; \end{tikzpicture} \end{center} where \(\mathbb{V}_{\text{crit}} := \text{Ind}^{\widehat{\mathfrak{g}}_{\text{crit}} }_{\mathfrak g[[t]]}\mathbb C\) is the vacuum module, \( \text{Op}_{\check{G}}\) is the space of \(\check{G}\)-opers on the punctured disk, and \( \text{Op}_{\check{G}}^{\text{reg}}\) is the space of \(\check{G}\)-opers on the disk. Now we are interested in understanding the category \( \widehat{\mathfrak{g}}_{\text{crit}}\text{-mod}_{\text{reg}} \) of \(\widehat{\mathfrak{g}}_{\text{crit}} \)-modules where \(Z(\widehat{\mathfrak{g}}_{\text{crit}} )\) acts through the quotient \(\text{Fun}( \text{Op}_{\check{G}}^{\text{reg}})\) of \(\text{Fun}(\text{Op}_{\check{G}} )\). Just like the finite-dimensional case, we have a functor \[ \Gamma \colon D_{\text{crit}}(\text{Gr}_G) \to \widehat{\mathfrak{g}}_{\text{crit}}\text{-mod}_{\text{reg}} , \] where \(\text{Gr}_G:=G(K)/G(O)\) is the affine Grassmannian of \(G\) understood as a flag variety of the loop group \(G(K)\). However, this has no chance of being an equivalence; the delta function \(\delta_1\) goes to the vacuum module \(\mathbb{V}_{\text{crit}}\), but the endomorphisms of the delta function are trivial whereas the endomorphisms of the vacuum module are big, as mentioned before. Frenkel and Gaitsgory's paper ``Local geometric Langlands correspondence and affine Kac-Moody algebras'' suggested to instead consider the following functor \[ \Gamma^{\text{Hecke}} \colon D_{\text{crit}}(\text{Gr}_G) \otimes_{\text{Rep}(\check{G})} \text{QCoh}( \text{Op}_{\check{G}}^{\text{reg}}) \to \widehat{\mathfrak{g}}_{\text{crit}}\text{-mod}_{\text{reg}} \] where \begin{itemize} \item the geometric Satake functor \(\text{Rep}(\check{G}) \to D_{\text{crit}}(\text{Gr}_G)^{G(O)}\) is a symmetric monoidal functor and \(D_{\text{crit}}(\text{Gr}_G)^{G(O)}\) acts on \(D_{\text{crit}}(\text{Gr}_G)\); \item as the space \( \text{Op}_{\check{G}}^{\text{reg}}\) is the moduli space of flat \(\check{G}\)-bundles on the formal disk with an extra structure, the forgetful map \( \text{Op}_{\check{G}}^{\text{reg}}\to \text{Flat}_{\check{G}}(D) = B\check{G} \) gives a symmetric monoidal functor \(\text{Rep}(\check{G})\to \text{QCoh}( \text{Op}_{\check{G}}^{\text{reg}})\). \end{itemize} Then their conjecture is that \(\Gamma^{\text{Hecke}}\) is an equivalence of abelian and derived categories. The main theorem of the current paper proves the conjecture for a group \(G=GL_2\) as well as simple groups of rank 1. Let us give an idea of the proof. \begin{itemize} \item Frenkel and Gaitsgory proved that \(\Gamma^{\text{Hecke}}\) is fully faithful and that \(\Gamma^{\text{Hecke}}\) is an equivalence on \(I^0\)-equivariant objects, where \(I^0\) is the radical of the Iwahori subgroup \(I\); \item Earlier results of Raskin's ``W-algebras and Whittaker categories'' and Frenkel-Gaitsgory-Vilonen's ``Whittaker patterns in the geometry of moduli spaces of bundles on curves'' showed that \(\Gamma^{\text{Hecke}}\) is an equivalence on Whittaker objects; \item The new result of the current paper is that for \(G=PGL_2\), any \(G(K)\)-category \(C\) with a level \(\kappa\) is generated under \(G(K)\) by the \(I^0\)-equivariant objects and the Whittaker objects. \end{itemize} Note that the first two points work for any reductive group \(G\). Then by observing that the essential image of \(\Gamma^{\text{Hecke}}\) is a \(G(K)\)-category, one can prove the result. With some more work, this can also be used to prove t-exactness. Later results of \textit{D. Yang} and \textit{S. Raskin} prove the conjecture for a general reductive group \(G\) [``Affine Beilinson-Bernstein localization at the critical level'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:2203.13885}], using categorical Moy-Prasad theory developed by \textit{D. Yang} [``Categorical Moy-Prasad theory Yang'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:2104.12917}] as a main new ingredient.