Hall algebras

Valerio Toledano Laredo (Northeastern University)
Wednesday March 11th, 2009

Let A be an abelian category which is linear over a finite field IF_q. I will review the construction of the Hall algebra H(A) of A. In examples coming from quivers, H(A) is typically a quantum group, where the role of the deformation parameter is played by the cardinality q of the field. I will also explain how one may set q=1 and obtain the enveloping algebras of semisimple Lie algebras.