k-Double Schur functions and equivariant (co)homology of the affine Grassmannian

The Schubert bases of the torus-equivariant homology and cohomology rings of the affine Grassmannian of $SL_{k+1}$ are realized by new families of symmetric functions called $k$ -double Schur functions and affine double Schur functions.     

Affine Stanley symmetric functions for classical types

We introduce affine Stanley symmetric functions for the special orthogonal groups, a class of symmetric functions that model the cohomology of the affine Grassmannian, continuing the work of Lam and Lam, Schilling, and Shimozono on the special linear and symplectic groups, respectively. For the odd orthogonal groups, a Hopf-algebra isomorphism is given, identifying (co)homology Schubert classes with symmetric functions. For the even orthogonal groups, we conjecture an approximate model of (co)homology via symmetric functions. In the process, we develop type B and type D non-commutative k-Schur functions as elements of the affine nilCoxeter algebra that model homology of the affine Grassmannian. Additionally, Pieri rules for multiplication by special Schubert classes in homology are given in both cases. Finally, we present a type-free interpretation of Pieri factors, used in the definition of noncommutative k-Schur functions or affine Stanley symmetric functions for any classical type.     

Skew Schubert functions and the Pieri formula for flag manifolds

We show the equivalence of the Pieri formula for flag manifolds with certain identities among the structure constants for the Schubert basis of the polynomial ring. This gives new proofs of both the Pieri formula and of these identities. A key step is the association of a symmetric function to a finite poset with labeled Hasse diagram satisfying a symmetry condition. This gives a unified definition of skew Schur functions, Stanley symmetric functions, and skew Schubert functions (defined here). We also use algebraic geometry to show the coefficient of a monomial in a Schubert polynomial counts certain chains in the Bruhat order, obtainng a combinatorial chain construction of Schubert polynomials.

     

A Pieri rule for skew shapes

The Pieri rule expresses the product of a Schur function and a single row Schur function in terms of Schur functions. We extend the classical Pieri rule by expressing the product of a skew Schur function and a single row Schur function in terms of skew Schur functions. Like the classical rule, our rule involves simple additions of boxes to the original skew shape. Our proof is purely combinatorial and extends the combinatorial proof of the classical case.     

Combinatorial Aspects of the K-Theory of Grassmannians

In this paper we study Grothendieck polynomials indexed by Grassmannian permutations, which are representatives for the classes corresponding to the structure sheaves of Schubert varieties in the K-theory of Grassmannians. These Grothendieck polynomials are nonhomogeneous symmetric polynomials whose lowest homogeneous component is a Schur polynomial. Our treatment, which is closely related to the theory of Schur functions, gives new information about these polynomials. Our main results are concerned with the transition matrices between Grothendieck polynomials indexed by Grassmannian permutations and Schur polynomials on the one hand and a Pieri formula for these Grothendieck polynomials on the other.     

Combinatorics of the K-theory of affine Grassmannians

We introduce a family of tableaux that simultaneously generalizes the tableaux used to characterize Grothendieck polynomials and k-Schur functions. We prove that the polynomials drawn from these tableaux are the affine Grothendieck polynomials and k-K-Schur functions – Schubert representatives for the K-theory of affine Grassmannians and their dual in the nil Hecke ring. We prove a number of combinatorial properties including Pieri rules.     

Quasisymmetric Schur functions

We introduce a new basis for quasisymmetric functions, which arise from a specialization of nonsymmetric Macdonald polynomials to standard bases, also known as Demazure atoms. Our new basis is called the basis of quasisymmetric Schur functions, since the basis elements refine Schur functions in a natural way. We derive expansions for quasisymmetric Schur functions in terms of monomial and fundamental quasisymmetric functions, which give rise to quasisymmetric refinements of Kostka numbers and standard (reverse) tableaux. From here we derive a Pieri rule for quasisymmetric Schur functions that naturally refines the Pieri rule for Schur functions. After surveying combinatorial formulas for Macdonald polynomials, including an expansion of Macdonald polynomials into fundamental quasisymmetric functions, we show how some of our results can be extended to include the t parameter from Hall-Littlewood theory.     

Schubert polynomials and Bott-Samelson varieties

Schubert polynomials generalize Schur polynomials, but it is not clear how to generalize several classical formulas: the Weyl character formula, the Demazure character formula, and the generating series of semistandard tableaux. We produce these missing formulas and obtain several surprising expressions for Schubert polynomials.?The above results arise naturally from a new geometric model of Schubert polynomials in terms of Bott-Samelson varieties. Our analysis includes a new, explicit construction for a Bott-Samelson variety Z as the closure of a B-orbit in a product of flag varieties. This construction works for an arbitrary reductive group G, and for G = GL(n) it realizes Z as the representations of a certain partially ordered set.?This poset unifies several well-known combinatorial structures: generalized Young diagrams with their associated Schur modules; reduced decompositions of permutations; and the chamber sets of Berenstein-Fomin-Zelevinsky, which are crucial in the combinatorics of canonical bases and matrix factorizations. On the other hand, our embedding of Z gives an elementary construction of its coordinate ring, and allows us to specify a basis indexed by tableaux. Received: November 27, 1997     

Schur functions,Good's identity,and hypergeometric series well poised in SU(n)

A simple direct proof is given of a fundamental identity involving Schur functions which contains as special cases the identity responsible for Good's proof of the Dyson conjecture and the summation theorem of Biedenharn and Louck that appears frequently in dealing with the explicit matrix elements which arise in the unitary groups. By using the Weyl character formula, a general identity is obtained which implies our result involving Schur functions when a root system of type A_{n ? 1} is considered. As a further application of our general identity, explicit analogs of Good's identity are given, corresponding to the root systems of types B_n, C_n, and D_n. In addition, methods to obtain q-analogs of all of these results are briefly described.     

Schubert classes in the equivariant cohomology of the Lagrangian Grassmannian

Let LGn denote the Lagrangian Grassmannian parametrizing maximal isotropic (Lagrangian) subspaces of a fixed symplectic vector space of dimension 2n. For each strict partition λ=(λ₁,…,λk) with λ₁?n there is a Schubert variety X(λ). Let T denote a maximal torus of the symplectic group acting on LGn. Consider the T-equivariant cohomology of LGn and the T-equivariant fundamental class σ(λ) of X(λ). The main result of the present paper is an explicit formula for the restriction of the class σ(λ) to any torus fixed point. The formula is written in terms of factorial analogue of the Schur Q-function, introduced by Ivanov. As a corollary to the restriction formula, we obtain an equivariant version of the Giambelli-type formula for LGn. As another consequence of the main result, we obtained a presentation of the ring .     

Split orders and convex polytopes in buildings

As part of his work to develop an explicit trace formula for Hecke operators on congruence subgroups of SL₂(Z), Hijikata (1974) [13] defines and characterizes the notion of a split order in M₂(k), where k is a local field. In this paper, we generalize the notion of a split order to Mn(k) for n>2 and give a natural geometric characterization in terms of the affine building for SLn(k). In particular, we show that there is a one-to-one correspondence between split orders in Mn(k) and a collection of convex polytopes in apartments of the building such that the split order is the intersection of all the maximal orders representing the vertices in the polytope. This generalizes the geometric interpretation in the n=2 case in which split orders correspond to geodesics in the tree for SL₂(k) with the split order given as the intersection of the endpoints of the geodesic.     

Properties of the nonsymmetric Robinson–Schensted–Knuth algorithm

We introduce a generalization of the Robinson–Schensted–Knuth insertion algorithm for semi-standard augmented fillings whose basement is an arbitrary permutation σ∈S _n . If σ is the identity, then our insertion algorithm reduces to the insertion algorithm introduced by the second author (Sémin. Lothar. Comb. 57:B57e, 2006) for semi-standard augmented fillings and if σ is the reverse of the identity, then our insertion algorithm reduces to the original Robinson–Schensted–Knuth row insertion algorithm. We use our generalized insertion algorithm to obtain new decompositions of the Schur functions into nonsymmetric elements called generalized Demazure atoms (which become Demazure atoms when σ is the identity). Other applications include Pieri rules for multiplying a generalized Demazure atom by a complete homogeneous symmetric function or an elementary symmetric function, a generalization of Knuth’s correspondence between matrices of non-negative integers and pairs of tableaux, and a version of evacuation for composition tableaux whose basement is an arbitrary permutation σ.     

Growth diagrams for the Schubert multiplication

We present a partial generalization of the classical Littlewood-Richardson rule (in its version based on Schützenberger's jeu de taquin) to Schubert calculus on flag varieties. More precisely, we describe certain structure constants expressing the product of a Schubert and a Schur polynomial. We use a generalization of Fomin's growth diagrams (for chains in Young's lattice of partitions) to chains of permutations in the so-called k-Bruhat order. Our work is based on the recent thesis of Beligan, in which he generalizes the classical plactic structure on words to chains in certain intervals in k-Bruhat order. Potential applications of our work include the generalization of the S₃-symmetric Littlewood-Richardson rule due to Thomas and Yong, which is based on Fomin's growth diagrams.     

The Murnaghan-Nakayama rule for k-Schur functions

We prove the Murnaghan-Nakayama rule for k-Schur functions of Lapointe and Morse, that is, we give an explicit formula for the expansion of the product of a power sum symmetric function and a k-Schur function in terms of k-Schur functions. This is proved using the noncommutative k-Schur functions in terms of the nilCoxeter algebra introduced by Lam and the affine analogue of noncommutative symmetric functions of Fomin and Greene.     

Schubert polynomials for the affine Grassmannian

Confirming a conjecture of Mark Shimozono, we identify polynomial representatives for the Schubert classes of the affine Grassmannian as the -Schur functions in homology and affine Schur functions in cohomology. The results are obtained by connecting earlier combinatorial work of ours to certain subalgebras of Kostant and Kumar's nilHecke ring and to work of Peterson on the homology of based loops on a compact group. As combinatorial corollaries, we settle a number of positivity conjectures concerning -Schur functions, affine Stanley symmetric functions and cylindric Schur functions.

     

Quantum Pieri rules for isotropic Grassmannians

We study the three point genus zero Gromov-Witten invariants on the Grassmannians which parametrize non-maximal isotropic subspaces in a vector space equipped with a nondegenerate symmetric or skew-symmetric form. We establish Pieri rules for the classical cohomology and the small quantum cohomology ring of these varieties, which give a combinatorial formula for the product of any Schubert class with certain special Schubert classes. We also give presentations of these rings, with integer coefficients, in terms of special Schubert class generators and relations.     

Discrete series characters for affine Hecke algebras and their formal degrees

We introduce the generic central character of an irreducible discrete series representation of an affine Hecke algebra. Using this invariant we give a new classification of the irreducible discrete series characters for all abstract affine Hecke algebras (except for the types E_n⁽¹⁾{E_{n}^{(1)}} , n=6, 7, 8) with arbitrary positive parameters and we prove an explicit product formula for their formal degrees (in all cases).     

Smooth and palindromic Schubert varieties in affine Grassmannians

We completely determine the smooth and palindromic Schubert varieties in affine Grassmannians, in all Lie types. We show that an affine Schubert variety is smooth if and only if it is a closed parabolic orbit. In particular, there are only finitely many smooth affine Schubert varieties in a given Lie type. An affine Schubert variety is palindromic if and only if it is a closed parabolic orbit, a chain, one of an infinite family of “spiral” varieties in type A, or a certain 9-dimensional singular variety in type B ₃. In particular, except in type A there are only finitely many palindromic affine Schubert varieties in a fixed Lie type. Moreover, in types D and E an affine Schubert variety is smooth if and only if it is palindromic; in all other types there are singular palindromics. The proofs are for the most part combinatorial. The main tool is a variant of Mozes’ numbers game, which we use to analyze the Bruhat order on the coroot lattice. In the proof of the smoothness theorem we also use Chevalley’s cup product formula.     

Multiplication of a Schubert polynomial by a Schur polynomial

Schur polynomials are a special case of Schubert polynomials. In this paper, we give an algorithm to compute the product of a Schubert polynomial with a Schur polynomial on the basis of Schubert polynomials. This is a special case of the general problem of the multiplication of two Schubert polynomials, where the corresponding algorithm is still missing. The main tools for the given algorithm is a factorization property of a special class of Schubert polynomials and the transition formula for Schubert polynomials.