Cuspidal sln-modules and deformations of certain Brauer tree algebras

We show that the algebras describing blocks of the category of cuspidal weight (resp. generalized weight) sl(n) -modules are one-parameter (resp. multi-parameter) deformations of certain Brauer tree algebras. We explicitly determine these deformations both graded and ungraded. The algebras we deform also appear as special centralizer subalgebras of Temperley-Lieb algebras or as generalized Khovanov algebras. They show up in the context of highest weight representations of the Virasoro algebra, in the context of rational representations of the general linear group and Schur algebras and in the study of the Milnor fiber of Kleinian singularities. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.