Signed quivers, symmetric quivers, and root systems

Abstract

We define a special sort of weighted oriented graphs, signed quivers. Each of these yields a symmetric quiver, i.e., a quiver endowed with an involutive anti-automorphism and the inherited signs. We develop a representation theory of symmetric quivers, in particular we describe the indecomposable symmetric representations. Their dimensions constitute root systems corresponding to certain symmetrizable generalized Cartan matrices.