Ben Webster, Institute for Advanced Study
Components of Springer fibers and Khovanov's arc algebra

Springer fibers are a fascinating class of varieties that have previously appeared many places in representation theory. Using the structure of certain Springer fibers and their components, I'll describe a geometric construction of an algebra which is painfully close to being isomorphic to the arc algebra defined by Khovanov (an algebra which also naturally appears when studying parabolic category O), but in fact, isn't. I'll then hopefully explain why this is actually a good thing.

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