Path isomorphisms between quiver Hecke and diagrammatic Bott-Samelson endomorphism algebras (Q6175954)

The symmetric group lies at the intersection of two great categorical theories. The first is Khovanov-Lauda and Rouquier's categorification of quantum groups and their knot invariants (see [\textit{M. Khovanov} and \textit{A. D. Lauda}, Represent. Theory 13, 309--347 (2009; Zbl 1188.81117)]). This setting has provided powerful new graded presentations of the symmetric group and its affine Hecke algebra. The second is Elias-Williamson's diagrammatic categorification in terms of endomorphisms of Bott-Samelson bimodules, it was in this setting that the counterexamples to Lusztig's conjecture were first found in [\textit{G. Williamson}, J. Am. Math. Soc. 30, No. 4, 1023--1046 (2017; Zbl 1380.20015)] and that the first general character formulas for decomposition numbers of symmetric groups were discovered [\textit{S. Riche} and \textit{G. Williamson}, Tilting modules and the \(p\)-canonical basis. Paris: Société Mathématique de France (2018; Zbl 1437.20001)]. In the paper under review, the authors construct an explicit isomorphism between quiver Hecke algebras and Elias-Williamson's diagrammatic endomorphism algebras of Bott-Samelson bimodules. As a corollary, they deduce that the decomposition numbers of these algebras (including as examples the symmetric groups and generalised blob algebras) are tautologically equal to the associated \(p\)-Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomials, provided that the characteristic is greater than the Coxeter number. They therefore give an elementary and more explicit proof of the main theorem of Riche-Williamson's monograph [loc. cit.] and extend their categorical equivalence to cyclotomic quiver Hecke algebras, thus solving the categorical blob conjecture of \textit{N. Libedinsky} and \textit{D. Plaza} [Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 121, No. 3, 656--701 (2020; Zbl 1528.20012)].