Whittaker categories of quasi-reductive Lie superalgebras and quantum symmetric pairs

Abstract: We show that, for an arbitrary quasi-reductive Lie superalgebra with a triangular decomposition and a character $\zeta$ of the nilpotent radical, the associated Backelin functor $\Gamma_\zeta$ sends Verma modules to standard Whittaker modules provided the latter exist. As a consequence, this gives a complete solution to the problem of determining the composition factors of the standard Whittaker modules in terms of composition factors of Verma modules in the category $\mathcal O$. In the case of the ortho-symplectic Lie superalgebras, we show that the Backelin functor $\Gamma_\zeta$ and its target category, respectively, categorify a $q$-symmetrizing map and the corresponding $q$-symmetrized Fock space associated with a quasi-split quantum symmetric pair of type $AIII$.