A topological construction for all two-row Springer varieties

Abstract

Springer varieties appear in both geometric representation theory and knot theory. Motivated by knot theory and categorification Khovanov provides a topological construction of $(n/2, n/2)$ Springer varieties. We extend Khovanov's construction to all two-row Springer varieties. Using the combinatorial and diagrammatic properties of this construction we provide a particularly useful homology basis and construct the Springer representation using this basis. We also provide a skein-theoretic formulation of the representation in this case.