Idempotents of Hecke algebras of type A

Abstract

We use a skein-theoretic version of the Hecke algebras of type A to present three-dimensional diagrammatic views of Gyoja's idempotent elements, based closely on the corresponding Young diagram. In this context we give straightforward calculations for the eigenvalues of two natural central elements in the Hecke algebras, namely the full curl and the sum of the Murphy operators. We discuss their calculation also in terms of the framing factor associated to the appropriate irreducible representation of the quantum group SU(N,q).