The cohomology of Deligne-Lusztig varieties for the general linear group (Q2319743)

For a split reductive group \(\mathbf{G}\) over \(k = \mathbb{F}_q\), we denote by \(X\) the variety of Borel subgroups of \(\mathbf{G}\). Deligne and Lusztig introduced the locally closed subsets of \(X\) given by \[ X(w) = \left\{ x \in X: \mathrm{inv}(x,F(x)) = w \right\}, \] where \(F: X \to X\) is the Frobenius morphism over \(k\), \(\mathrm{inv}\) measures the relative position in terms of Bruhat decomposition, and \(w\) ranges over the elements of the Weyl group. These are quasi-projective varieties defined over \(k\) endowed with natural \(G = \mathbf{G}(k)\)-actions, and \(\dim X(w) = \ell(w)\). The virtual \(G\)-representations \(\sum_i (-1)^i \mathrm{H}^i_c(X(w), \overline{\mathbb{Q}}_\ell)\) are known to detect all \(\ell\)-adic irreducible characters of \(G\). Nevertheless, much less is known about the individual cohomologies \(\mathrm{H}^i_c(X(w), \overline{\mathbb{Q}}_\ell)\) as \(G \times \mathrm{Gal}_k\)-modules. The goal of the article under review is to give two inductive procedure to unravel their structures when \(\mathbf{G} = \mathbf{GL}_n\). The algorithm makes use of squares, which are quadruples \(\{w', sw', w's, w\} \subset W\) appearing originally in the BGG resolutions of finite-dimensional Lie algebra representations. More generally, one considers hyper-squares in \(W\) or even the monoid \(F^+\) freely generated by the simple reflections in \(W\). To each element \(w\) in \(F^+\) one can attach the Demazure compactification \(\overline{X}(w)\) of Deligne-Lusztig varieties. This is connected to our original question by a spectral sequence \[ E_1^{p, q} = \bigoplus_{v \leq w, \; \ell(v) = \ell(w) - p} \mathrm{H}^q(\overline{X}(v)) \Rightarrow \mathrm{H}^{p+q}_c(X(w)). \] For the precise inductive recipe, we refer the readers to the last few results recorded in Section 1.