We study a category of semiinfinite sheaves on the affine flag variety of a connected reductive algebraic group G, with coefficients in a field $\Bbbk $ (of arbitrary characteristic different from that of the base field), generalizing some results of Gaitsgory and showing that this category behaves like familiar categories of sheaves on flag varieties in many respects. Our interest is motivated by expected relations with representation theory of the Lie algebra of the Langlands dual reductive group over $\Bbbk $.

Let G be a simple algebraic group of adjoint type over an algebraically closed field k of bad characteristic. We show that its sheets of conjugacy classes are parametrized by G-conjugacy classes of pairs $(M,{\mathcal O})$ where M is the identity component of the centralizer of a semisimple element in G and ${\mathcal O}$ is a rigid unipotent conjugacy class in M, in analogy with the good characteristic case.

In this paper we construct an action of the affine Hecke category (in its ‘Soergel bimodules’ incarnation) on the principal block of representations of a simply connected semisimple algebraic group over an algebraically closed field of characteristic bigger than the Coxeter number. This confirms a conjecture of G. Williamson and the second author, and provides a new proof of the tilting character formula in terms of antispherical $p$-Kazhdan–Lusztig polynomials.

We prove a generalisation of a theorem of Nagata on ruled surface to the case of the fiber bundle E/P → X, associated to a principal G-bundle E. Using this we prove boundedness for the isomorphism classes of semi-stable G-bundles in all characteristics.