Minimal reduction type and the Kazhdan-Lusztig map

We introduce the notion of minimal reduction type of an affine Springer fiber, and use it to define a map from the set of conjugacy classes in the Weyl group to the set of nilpotent orbits. We show that this map is the same as the one defined by Lusztig in Lfromto, (2011) and that the Kazhdan-Lusztig map in Kazhdan and Lusztig, (1998) is a section of our map. This settles several conjectures in the literature. For classical groups, we prove more refined results by introducing and studying the "skeleta" of affine Springer fibers. (c) 2021 Royal Dutch Mathematical Society (KWG). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.