Alcove walks, Hecke algebras, spherical functions, crystals and column strict tableaux

Abstract

This paper makes precise the close connection between the affine Hecke algebra, the path model, and the theory of crystals. Section 2 is a basic pictorial exposition of Weyl groups and affine Weyl groups and Section 5 is an exposition of the theory of (a) symmetric functions, (b) crystals and (c) the path model. Sections 3 and 4 give an exposition of the affine Hecke algebra and recent results regarding the combinatorics of spherical functions on p-adic groups (Hall-Littlewood polynomials). The $q$-analogue of the theory of crystals developed in Section 4 specializes to the path model version of the ``classical'' crystal theory. The connection to the affine Hecke algebra and the approach to spherical functions for a $p$-adic group in Nelsen-Ram was made concrete by C. Schwer who told me that ``the periodic Hecke module encodes the positively folded galleries'' of Gaussent-Littelmann. This paper is a further development of this point of view.