For Mathematicians

For Mathematicians / Math education

My Education Manifesto

I have been thinking about math education for more than fifteen years. An initiation rite for me was the following story. I was training three students for the math olympics in some school. They worked with me for one year without previous trainment. Then they went to the National Mathematical Olympiad in Chile and they obtained the three gold medals that were given that year. In that moment I was very moved and I realized that the method that I implemented (a method that has been evolving ever since) was interesting.

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September 20, 2017
For Mathematicians / Papers and preprints

On the size of Bruhat intervals

Joint with Federico Castillo, Damian de la Fuente and David Plaza. For affine Weyl groups and elements associated to dominant coweights, we give a convex geometry formula for the size of the corresponding lower Bruhat intervals (this says in particular that it is a polynomial in several variables). Extensive computer calculations for affine Weyl groups have led us to believe that a similar formula exists for all lower Bruhat intervals. We also believe that the cardinality of all Bruhat intervals is given by some family of quasi-polynomials.

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September 2, 2023
On the size of Bruhat intervals
Papers and preprints

Demazure operators for double cosets

Joint with Ben Elias, Hankyung Ko and Leonardo Patimo. This is the first of a series of papers intended to advance in the development of a singular (i.e. double cosets) theory of Coxeter groups, Hecke algebras, actions of groups on polynomial rings and the Hecke category. Two milestones of this long-term project would be to produce singular light leaves and singular Soergel calculus. Here, we introduce a Demazure operator for any double coset. We prove several results about them, but the crucial thing for us is that they give a criterion for ensuring the proper behavior of singular Soergel bimodules.

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September 2, 2023
For Mathematicians / Papers and preprints

Combinatorial invariance conjecture for affine A2

Joint with Gastón Burrull and David Plaza, International Mathematics Research Notices 10 (2023) 8903–8933.  We prove the combinatorial invariance conjecture (by G. Lusztig and M. Dyer in the eighties) for the affine A2. This is the first infinite group with non-trivial Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomials where this fascinating conjecture is proved.

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May 29, 2021
Combinatorial invariance conjecture for affine A2
For Mathematicians / Papers and preprints

Pre-canonical bases on affine Hecke algebras

Joint with Leonardo Patimo and David Plaza, Advances in Mathematics  399 (2022). For any affine Weyl group, we introduce the pre-canonical bases, a set of bases of the spherical Hecke algebra that interpolates between the standard basis and the canonical basis. Thus we divide the hard problem of calculating Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomials (or q-analogues of weight multiplicities) into a finite number of much easier problems.

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July 10, 2020
Pre-canonical bases on affine Hecke algebras
For Mathematicians / Papers and preprints

The Anti-Spherical Category

joint with Geordie Williamson, Advances in Mathematics  405 (2022). We prove that (sign) parabolic Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomials have non-negative coefficients for ANY Coxeter system and ANY choice of a parabolic subgroup, thus generalizing to the parabolic setting the central result of The Hodge theory of Soergel bimodules by Elias and Williamson.  We also prove a monotonicity conjecture of Brenti. The new techniques were used by Williamson and Lusztig to calculate many new elements of the p-canonical basis and thus make the Billiards conjecture. Along the way, we introduce the anti-spherical light leaves.

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November 11, 2020
The Anti-Spherical Category
Papers and preprints

Blob algebra approach to modular representation theory

Joint work with David Plaza. Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society 121 (2020) Issue3, 656-701. We conjecture (and prove the "graded degree part") an equivalence between the type A affine Hecke category in positive characteristic and a certain blob category that we introduce as a quotient of KLR algebras. This conjecture has been proved recently in an amazing paper by Chris Bowman, Anton Cox, Amit Hazi!! It opens lots of questions...

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July 24, 2018
Blob algebra approach to modular representation theory
For Mathematicians / Papers and preprints

p-Jones Wenzl idempotent

Joint work with Gastón Burrull and Paolo Sentinelli. Advances in Mathematics  352 (2019) 246-264. In this paper we introduce the p-Jones Wenzl idempotent, a characteristic p analogue of the classical Jones-Wenzl idempotent. We hope this to be a building block for the p-canonical basis as sl_2 is a building block for the representation theory of semi-simple Lie algebras.

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February 16, 2019
Featured papers and preprints / For Mathematicians / Papers and preprints

Gentle introduction to Soergel bimodules I: The basics

 Sao Paulo Journal of Mathematical Sciences, 13(2) (2019), 499-538. This paper is the first of a series of introductory papers on the fascinating world of Soergel bimodules. It is combinatorial in nature and should be accessible to a broad audience. We introduce the Forking path conjecture.

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September 1, 2017
Gentle introduction to Soergel bimodules I: The basics
For Mathematicians / Research interests

Research interests

Most of my work revolves around some beautiful and central objects in representation theory called Soergel bimodules. I have produced a basis of morphisms between such objects that are called Light Leaves. I am fascinated by them. On the one hand, it is because of them that one can actually compute in Soergel bimodule-land, and on the other, they have some very rich combinatorial structure that is slowly unearthing. My favorite subjects are diagrammatical category theory, categorical braid group actions, modular representations of finite or algebraic groups, Kazhdan-Lusztig theory, categorifications and knot theory. Very nice.

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September 20, 2017