The Springer correspondence makes a link between the characters of a Weyl group and the geometry of the nilpotent cone of the corresponding semisimple Lie algebra. In this article, we consider a modular version of the theory, and show that the decomposition numbers of a Weyl group are particular cases of decomposition numbers for equivariant perverse sheaves on the nilpotent cone. We give some decomposition numbers which can be obtained geometrically. In the case of the symmetric group, we show that James' row and column removal rule for the symmetric group can be derived from a smooth equivalence between nilpotent singularities proved by Kraft and Procesi. We give the complete structure of the Springer and Grothendieck sheaves in the case of @math . Finally, we determine explicitly the modular Springer correspondence for exceptional types.
We show that two Weyl group actions on the Springer sheaf with arbitrary coefficients, one defined by Fourier transform and one by restriction, agree up to a twist by the sign character. This generalizes a familiar result from the setting of l-adic cohomology, making it applicable to modular representation theory. We use the Weyl group actions to define a Springer correspondence in this generality, and identify the zero weight spaces of small representations in terms of this Springer correspondence.  For a simply-connected simple algebraic group @math over @math , we exhibit a subvariety of its affine Grassmannian that is closely related to the nilpotent cone of @math , generalizing a well-known fact about @math . Using this variety, we construct a sheaf-theoretic functor that, when combined with the geometric Satake equivalence and the Springer correspondence, leads to a geometric explanation for a number of known facts (mostly due to Broer and Reeder) about small representations of the dual group.