Categorical construction of A,D,E root systems

Abstract

Let Γbe a Dynkin diagram of type A,D,E and let R denote the corresponding root system. In this paper we give a categorical construction of R from Γ. Instead of choosing an orientation of Γand studying representations of the associated quiver, we study representations of a canonical quiver \Gammahat associated to Γ. This construction is very closely related to the preprojective algebra of Γ. In particular, the construction gives a certain periodicity result about the preprojective algebra.

25 pages, 3 figures v3: corrected typos, added new reference (see Remark 1.2)