Representations of Hecke algebras at roots of unity. (Q547833)

This book unifies and summarises some of the work, mostly done during the last ten years, on representations of Iwahori-Hecke algebras of finite Coxeter groups. The authors are experts in this field, and much of the book concentrates on their contributions to the field. The book is very nicely written, striking the ideal balance between providing a uniform treatment of the finite Coxeter groups on the one hand, and presenting type-specific material on the other. The authors do a very good job of stripping down the background material and omitting proofs in order to keep the book to a reasonable length, and their referencing is excellent. However, the potential reader should be warned that the book is still rather long and dense. The first chapter concentrates on (briefly) introducing the finite Coxeter groups and their Hecke algebras before introducing cells and Lusztig's \(a\)-invariants. The main focus of Chapter 2 is to explain the first author's result that the Hecke algebras are cellular. The background on cellular algebras is kept to a minimum, and the reader who has not encountered these before might be at a loss here; however, references are provided. In Chapter 3 the authors introduce decomposition maps, taking a nice general approach, but always with the main example (the decomposition numbers for the symmetric groups in characteristic \(p\)) in mind. They then address ``canonical basic sets'' which index irreducible representations in non-semisimple cases. Chapter 4 surveys the connection with representations of finite groups of Lie type; the authors survey this connection, which generalises the type \(A\) case pioneered by Dipper. At the end of this chapter, the authors consider the case of type \(B\) in some detail, examining how to generalise results from the type \(A\) case. This is taken further in Chapters 5 and 6, where the Ariki-Koike algebra is introduced. Even though this algebra is not the Hecke algebra of a finite Coxeter group, its representation theory fits into the framework of the book, and unifies the Hecke algebras of types \(A\) and \(B\) (which are special cases). There are already good sources on this algebra, but very little has appeared in book form until now. The authors give some general background on the representation theory of the Ariki-Koike algebra, before discussing some of the earlier aspects of the book -- decomposition maps and canonical basic sets -- in the context of the Ariki-Koike algebra. The authors give a nice treatment of Ariki's Theorem, which allows the computation of the decomposition matrix for the Ariki-Koike algebra in characteristic zero. The final short chapter of the book gives tables of decomposition numbers for exceptional types, which is a useful reference. In summary, this book is excellent. It will serve primarily as a reference for experts, but would also work well for self-study for a graduate student.