SMS scnews item created by Anthony Henderson at Fri 16 Mar 2007 1804
Type: Seminar
Distribution: World
Expiry: 30 Mar 2007
Calendar1: 30 Mar 2007 1205-1255
CalLoc1: Carslaw 375
CalTitle1: Algebra Seminar: Rui -- Discriminants of Brauer algebras
Auth: anthonyh@asti.maths.usyd.edu.au

Algebra Seminar

Discriminants of Brauer algebras

Hebing Rui

30th March, 12:05-12:55pm, Carslaw 375


Abstract

Brauer algebras were introduced by Richard Brauer in order to study the tensor representations of the defining space for orthogonal or symplectic groups. In 1995, Graham and Lehrer proved that Brauer algebras over a commutative ring are cellular algebras. A natural question is how to compute the Gram determinant for each cell module of a Brauer algebra. In this talk, I will answer this question by giving a recursive formula. Such a formula has been generalized to Birman-Wenzl algebras, the q-analogue of Brauer algebras. We also give necessary and sufficient conditions for the semisimplicity of Birman-Wenzl algebras over an arbitrary field, which improves work by H. Wenzl in 1990.

This is joint work with Mei Si.


After the seminar we will take the speaker to lunch.

See the Algebra Seminar web page for information about other seminars in the series.

Anthony Henderson anthonyh@maths.usyd.edu.au.