We use Drinfeld style generators and relations to define an algebra U n Uₙ which is a “ q = 0 q=0 ” version of the affine quantum group of g l n glₙ. We then use the convolution product on the equivariant K K -theory of varieties of pairs of partial flags in a d d -dimensional vector space V V to define affine 0 0 -Schur algebras S 0 aff (n, d) S₀^ {aff} (n, d) and to prove that for every d d there exists a surjective homomorphism from U n Uₙ to S 0 aff (n, d) S₀^ {aff} (n, d).
Arkhipov et al. (Thu,) studied this question.