Quasi-Coxeter categories and a relative Etingof-Kazhdan quantization functor

Let g be a symmetrizable Kac-Moody algebra and U_h(g) its quantized enveloping algebra. The quantum Weyl group operators of U_h(g) and the universal R-matrices of its Levi subalgebras endow U_h(g) with a natural quasi-Coxeter quasitriangular quasibialgebra structure which underlies the action of the braid group of g and Artin's braid groups on the tensor product of integrable, category O modules. We show that this structure can be transferred to the universal enveloping algebra Ug[[h]]. The proof relies on a modification of the Etingof-Kazhdan quantization functor, and yields an isomorphism between (appropriate completions of) U_h(g) and Ug[[h]] preserving a given chain of Levi subalgebras. We carry it out in the more general context of chains of Manin triples, and obtain in particular a relative version of the Etingof-Kazhdan functor with input a split pair of Lie bialgebras. Along the way, we develop the notion of quasi-Coxeter categories, which are to generalized braid groups what braided tensor categories are to Artin's braid groups. This leads to their succint description as a 2-functor from a 2-category whose morphisms are De Concini-Procesi associahedra. These results will be used in the sequel to this paper to give a monodromic description of the quantum Weyl group operators of an affine Kac-Moody algebra, extending the one obtained by the second author for a semisimple Lie algebra.Comment: 63 pages. Exposition in sections 1 and 4 improved. Material added: definition of a split pair of Lie bialgebras (sect. 5.2-5.5), 1-jet of the relative twist (5.20), PROP description of the Verma modules L_-,N*_+ (7.6), restriction to Levi subalgebras (8.4), D-structures on Kac-Moody algebras (9.1

Algebraic K-theory of quasi-smooth blow-ups and cdh descent

We construct a semi-orthogonal decomposition on the category of perfect complexes on the blow-up of a derived Artin stack in a quasi-smooth centre. This gives a generalization of Thomason's blow-up formula in algebraic K-theory to derived stacks. We also provide a new criterion for descent in Voevodsky's cdh topology, which we use to give a direct proof of Cisinski's theorem that Weibel's homotopy invariant K-theory satisfies cdh descent.Comment: 24 pages; to appear in Annales Henri Lebesgu

New Duality Transformations in Orbifold Theory

We find new duality transformations which allow us to construct the stress tensors of all the twisted sectors of any orbifold A(H)/H, where A(H) is the set of all current-algebraic conformal field theories with a finite symmetry group H \subset Aut(g). The permutation orbifolds with H = Z_\lambda and H = S_3 are worked out in full as illustrations but the general formalism includes both simple and semisimple g. The motivation for this development is the recently-discovered orbifold Virasoro master equation, whose solutions are identified by the duality transformations as sectors of the permutation orbifolds A(D_\lambda)/Z_\lambda.Comment: 48 pages,typos correcte