Perverse sheaves on symmetric products of the plane

Abstract: For any field $k$, we give an algebraic description of the category $\mathrm{Perv}_\mathscr{S}(S^n (\mathbb{C}^2),k)$ of perverse sheaves on the $n$-fold symmetric product of the plane $S^n(\mathbb{C}^2)$ constructible with respect to its natural stratification and with coefficients in $k$. In particular, we show that it is equivalent to the category of modules over a new algebra that is closely related to the Schur algebra. As part of our description we obtain an analogue of modular Springer theory for the Hilbert scheme $\mathrm{Hilb}^n(\mathbb{C}^2)$ of $n$ points in the plane with its Hilbert-Chow morphism.