AN ANALOG OF KOSTANT'S THEOREM FOR THE COHOMOLOGY OF QUANTUM GROUPS

We prove the analog of Kostant's Theorem on Lie algebra cohomology in the context Of quantum groups. In particular, it is shown that Kostant's cohomology formula holds for quantum groups at a generic parameter q, recovering an earlier result of Malikov in the case where the underlying semisimple Lie algebra g = sl(n). We also show that Kostant's formula holds when q is specialized to an l-th root of unity for odd l >= h - 1 (where h is the Coxeter number of g) when the highest weight of the coefficient module lies in the lowest alcove. This can be regarded as an analog of results of Friedlander-Parshall and Polo-Tilouine on the cohomology of Lie algebras of reductive algebraic groups in prime characteristic.