Langlands duality for representations of quantum groups

We establish a correspondence (or duality) between the characters and the crystal bases of finite-dimensional representations of quantum groups associated to Langlands dual semi-simple Lie algebras. This duality may also be stated purely in terms of semi-simple Lie algebras. To explain this duality, we introduce an "interpolating quantum group" depending on two parameters which interpolates between a quantum group and its Langlands dual. We construct examples of its representations, depending on two parameters, which interpolate between representations of two Langlands dual quantum groups.Comment: 37 pages. References added. Accepted for publication in Mathematische Annale

Remarks on the α\alpha--permanent

We recall Vere-Jones's definition of the $\alpha$--permanent and describe the connection between the (1/2)--permanent and the hafnian. We establish expansion formulae for the $\alpha$--permanent in terms of partitions of the index set, and we use these to prove Lieb-type inequalities for the $\pm\alpha$--permanent of a positive semi-definite Hermitian $n\times n$ matrix and the $\alpha/2$--permanent of a positive semi-definite real symmetric $n\times n$ matrix if $\alpha$ is a nonnegative integer or $\alpha\ge n-1$. We are unable to settle Shirai's nonnegativity conjecture for $\alpha$--permanents when $\alpha\ge 1$, but we verify it up to the $5\times 5$ case, in addition to recovering and refining some of Shirai's partial results by purely combinatorial proofs.Comment: 9 page

Comments on the Deformed W_N Algebra

We obtain an explicit expression for the defining relation of the deformed W_N algebra, DWA(^sl_N)_{q,t}. Using this expression we can show that, in the q-->1 limit, DWA(^sl_N)_{q,t} with t=e^{-2\pi i/N}q^{(k+N)/N} reduces to the sl_N-version of the Lepowsky-Wilson's Z-algebra of level k, ZA(^sl_N)_k. In other words DWA(^sl_N)_{q,t} with t=e^{-2\pi i/N}q^{(k+N)/N} can be considered as a q-deformation of ZA(^sl_N)_k. In the appendix given by H.Awata, S.Odake and J.Shiraishi, we present an interesting relation between DWA(^sl_N)_{q,t} and \zeta-function regularization.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX2e with ws-ijmpb.cls, Talk at the APCTP-Nankai Joint Symposium on ``Lattice Statistics and Mathematical Physics'', 8-10 October 2001, Tianjin Chin