Poincaré–Birkhoff–Witt bases and Khovanov–Lauda–Rouquier algebras

We generalize Lusztig’s geometric construction of the Poincaré–Birkhoff–Witt (PBW) bases of finite quantum groups of type ADE under the framework of Varagnolo and Vasserot. In particular, every PBW basis of such quantum groups is proven to yield a semi-orthogonal collection in the module category of the Khovanov–Lauda–Rouquier (KLR) algebras. This enables us to prove Lusztig’s conjecture on the positivity of the canonical (lower global) bases in terms of the (lower) PBW bases. In addition, we verify Kashiwara’s problem on the finiteness of the global dimensions of the KLR algebras of type ADE.