Positivity for Kac polynomials and DT-invariants of quivers

We give a cohomological interpretation of both the Kac polynomial and the refined Donaldson-Thomas-invariants of quivers. This interpretation yields a proof of a conjecture of Kac from 1982 and gives a new perspective on recent work of Kontsevich-Soibelman. Thisis achieved by computing, via an arithmetic Fourier transform, the dimensions of the isotypical components of the cohomology of associated Nakajima quiver varieties under the action of a Weyl group. The generating function of the corresponding Poincare polynomials is an extension of Hua's formula for Kac polynomials of quivers involving Hall-Littlewood symmetric functions. The resulting formulae contain a wide range of information on the geometry of the quiver varieties.