Universal rings arising in geometry and group theory

In this paper we study invariant rings arising in the study of finite dimensional algebraic structures. The rings we encounter are graded rings of the form $K[U]^{\Gamma}$ where $\Gamma$ is a product of general linear groups over a field $K$ of characteristic zero, and $U$ is a finite dimensional rational representation of $\Gamma$. We will calculate the Hilbert series of such rings using the representation theory of the symmetric groups and Schur-Weyl duality. We focus on th...

Given a closed complex manifold $X$ of even dimension, we develop a systematic (vertex) algebraic approach to study the rational orbifold cohomology rings $\orbsym$ of the symmetric products. We present constructions and establish results on the rings $\orbsym$ including two sets of ring generators, universality and stability, as well as connections with vertex operators and W algebras. These are independent of but parallel to the main results on the cohomology rings of the H...

We study the structure constants of the class algebra $R_Z(G_n)$ of the wreath products $G_n$ associated to an arbitrary finite group G with respect to the basis of conjugacy classes. We show that a suitable filtration on $R_Z(G_n)$ gives rise to the graded ring $\mathcal G_G(n)$ with non-negative integer structure constants independent of n (some of which are computed), which are then encoded in a Farahat-Higman ring $\mathcal G_G$. The real conjugacy classes of G come to pl...

In this paper we review various strikingly parallel algebraic structures behind Hilbert schemes of points on surfaces and certain finite groups called the wreath products. We explain connections among Hilbert schemes, wreath products, infinite-dimensional Lie algebras, and vertex algebras. As an application we further describe the cohomology ring structure of the Hilbert schemes. We organize this exposition around several general principles which have been supported by variou...

We study the ideals of the rational cohomology ring of the Hilbert scheme X^{[n]} of n points on a smooth projective surface X. As an application, for a large class of smooth quasi-projective surfaces X, we show that every cup product structure constant of H^*(X^{[n]}) is independent of n; moreover, we obtain two sets of ring generators for the cohomology ring H^*(X^{[n]}). Similar results are established for the Chen-Ruan orbifold cohomology ring of the symmetric product. ...

The integral cohomology ring of the Hilbert scheme of n-tuples on the affine plane is shown to be isomorphic to the graded ring associated to a filtration of the ring of integral class functions on the symmetric group.

A result of Farahat and Higman shows that there is a ``universal'' algebra, $\mathrm{FH}$, interpolating the centres of symmetric group algebras, $Z(\mathbb{Z}S_n)$. We explain that this algebra is isomorphic to $\mathcal{R} \otimes \Lambda$, where $\mathcal{R}$ is the ring of integer-valued polynomials and $\Lambda$ is the ring of symmetric functions. Moreover, the isomorphism is via ``evaluation at Jucys-Murphy elements'', which leads to character formulae for symmetric gro...

Let A[X]_U be a fraction ring of the polynomial ring A[X] in the variable X over a commutative ring A. We show that the Hilbert functor {Hilb}^n_{A[X]_U} is represented by an affine scheme $\text{Symm}^n_A(A[X]_U)$ give as the ring of symmetric tensors of $\otimes_A^nA[X]_U$. The universal family is given as $\text{Symm}^{n-1}_A(A[X]_U)\times_A \text{Spec}(A[X]_U)$.

This article can be seen as a sequel to the first author's article ``Chern classes of the tangent bundle on the Hilbert scheme of points on the affine plane'', where he calculates the total Chern class of the Hilbert schemes of points on the affine plane by proving a result on the existence of certain universal formulas expressing characteristic classes on the Hilbert schemes in term of Nakajima's creation operators. The purpose of this work is (at least) two-fold. First of...

The notion of the orbifold Euler characteristic came from physics at the end of 80's. There were defined higher order versions of the orbifold Euler characteristic and generalized ("motivic") versions of them. In a previous paper the authors defined a notion of the Grothendieck ring $K_0^{\rm fGr}(Var)$ of varieties with actions of finite groups on which the orbifold Euler characteristic and its higher order versions are homomorphisms to the ring of integers. Here we define t...