Traces, Schubert calculus, and Hochschild cohomology of category $\mathcal{O}$

Abstract

We discuss how the Hochschild cohomology of a dg category can be computed as the trace of its Serre functor. Applying this approach to the principal block of the Bernstein--Gelfand--Gelfand category $\mathcal{O}$, we obtain its Hochschild cohomology as the compactly supported cohomology of an associated space. Equivalently, writing $\mathcal{O}$ as modules over the endomorphism algebra $A$ of a minimal projective generator, this is the Hochschild cohomology of $A$. In particular our computation gives the Euler characteristic of the Hochschild cohomology of $\mathcal{O}$ in type A.