Graded Specht modules as Bernstein-Zelevinsky derivatives of the RSK model

Abstract: We clarify the links between the graded Specht construction of modules over cyclotomic Hecke algebras and the RSK construction for quiver Hecke algebras of type A, that was recently imported from the setting of representations of p-adic groups. For that goal we develop a theory of crystal derivative operators on quiver Hecke algebra modules, that categorifies the Berenstein-Zelevinsky strings framework on quantum groups, and generalizes a graded variant of the classical Bernstein-Zelevinsky derivatives from the p-adic setting. Graded cyclotomic decomposition numbers are shown to be a special subfamily of the wider concept of RSK decomposition numbers.