Left cells in type $B_n$ with unequal parameters

Abstract

Kazhdan and Lusztig have shown that the partition of the symmetric group of degree $n$ into left cells is given by the Robinson-Schensted correspondence. The aim of this paper is to provide a similar description of the left cells in type $B_n$ for a special class of choices of unequal parameters. This is based on a generalization of the Robinson-Schensted correspondence for type $B_n$. We also give an explicit description of the left cell representations and show that they are irreducible and constructible.