Using an analogue of Makanin-Razborov diagrams, the authors give an effective description of the solution set of systems of equations over a partially commutative group.

"Volume 212, number 999 (end of volume)."

"November 2012, volume 220, number 1035 (third of 4 numbers)."

There are two approaches to projective representation theory of symmetric and alternating groups, which are powerful enough to work for modular representations. One is based on Sergeev duality, which connects projective representation theory of the symmetric group and representation theory of the algebraic supergroup $Q(n)$ via appropriate Schur (super)algebras and Schur functors. The second approach follows the work of Grojnowski for classical affine and cyclotomic Hecke algebras and connects projective representation theory of symmetric groups in characteristic $p$ to the crystal graph of the basic module of the twisted affine Kac-Moody algebra of type $A_{p-1}^{(2)}$. The goal of this work is to connect the two approaches mentioned above and to obtain new branching results for projective representations of symmetric groups.

The authors introduce a generalization of the Fourier transform, denoted by $\mathcal{F}_C$, on the isotropic cone $C$ associated to an indefinite quadratic form of signature $(n_1,n_2)$ on $\mathbb{R}^n$ ($n=n_1+n_2$: even). This transform is in some sense the unique and natural unitary operator on $L^2(C)$, as is the case with the Euclidean Fourier transform $\mathcal{F}_{\mathbb{R}^n}$ on $L^2(\mathbb{R}^n)$. Inspired by recent developments of algebraic representation theory of reductive groups, the authors shed new light on classical analysis on the one hand, and give the global formulas for the $L^2$-model of the minimal representation of the simple Lie group $G=O(n_1+1,n_2+1)$ on the other hand.