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Alexander Postnikov

Publications and source records attributed to Alexander Postnikov.

51 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
arXiv2005

Affine Weyl groups in K-theory and representation theory

We give an explicit combinatorial Chevalley-type formula for the equivariant K-theory of generalized flag varieties G/P which is a direct generalization of the classical Chevalley formula. Our formula implies a simple combinatorial model for the characters of the irreducible representations of G and, more generally, for the Demazure characters. This model can be viewed as a discrete counterpart of the Littelmann path model, and has several advantages. Our construction is given in terms of a certain R-matrix, that is, a collection of operators satisfying the Yang-Baxter equation. It reduces to combinatorics of decompositions in the affine Weyl group and enumeration of saturated chains in the Bruhat order on the (nonaffine) Weyl group. Our model easily implies several symmetries of the coefficients in the Chevalley-type formula. We also derive a simple formula for multiplying an arbitrary Schubert class by a divisor class, as well as a dual Chevalley-type formula. The paper contains other applications and examples.

math.RT↗
arXiv2005

On the X-rays of permutations

The X-ray of a permutation is defined as the sequence of antidiagonal sums in the associated permutation matrix. X-rays of permutation are interesting in the context of Discrete Tomography since many types of integral matrices can be written as linear combinations of permutation matrices. This paper is an invitation to the study of X-rays of permutations from a combinatorial point of view. We present connections between these objects and nondecreasing differences of permutations, zero-sum arrays, decomposable permutations, score sequences of tournaments, queens' problems and rooks' problems.

math.CO↗
arXiv2005

Chains in the Bruhat order

We study a family of polynomials whose values express degrees of Schubert varieties in the generalized complex flag manifold G/B. The polynomials are given by weighted sums over saturated chains in the Bruhat order. We derive several explicit formulas for these polynomials, and investigate their relations with Schubert polynomials, harmonic polynomials, Demazure characters, and generalized Littlewood-Richardson coefficients. In the second half of the paper, we concern with the case of to the classical flag manifold of Lie type A and discuss related combinatorial objects: flagged Schur polynomials, 312-avoiding permutations, generalized Gelfand-Tsetlin polytopes, the inverse Schubert-Kostka matrix, parking functions, and binary trees.

math.CO↗
arXiv2004

Smoothness of Schubert varieties via patterns in root systems

The aim of this article is to present a smoothness criterion for Schubert varieties in generalized flag manifolds $G/B$ in terms of patterns in root systems. We generalize Lakshmibai-Sandhya's well-known result that says that a Schubert variety in $SL(n)/B$ is smooth if and only if the corresponding permutation avoids the patterns 3412 and 4231. Our criterion is formulated uniformly in general Lie theoretic terms. We define a notion of pattern in Weyl group elements and show that a Schubert variety is smooth (or rationally smooth) if and only if the corresponding element of the Weyl group avoids a certain finite list of patterns. These forbidden patterns live only in root subsystems with star-shaped Dynkin diagrams. In the simply-laced case the list of forbidden patterns is especially simple: besides two patterns of type $A_3$ that appear in Lakshmibai-Sandhya's criterion we only need one additional forbidden pattern of type $D_4$. Remarkably, several other important classes of elements in Weyl groups can also be described in terms of forbidden patterns. For example, the fully commutative elements in Weyl groups have such a characterization. In order to prove our criterion we used several known results for the classical types. For the exceptional types, our proof is based on computer verifications. In order to conduct such a verification for the computationally challenging type $E_8$, we derived several general results on Poincaré polynomials of cohomology rings of Schubert varieties based on parabolic decomposition, which have an independent interest.

math.CO↗
arXiv2003

Trees, parking functions, syzygies, and deformations of monomial ideals

For a graph G, we construct two algebras, whose dimensions are both equal to the number of spanning trees of G. One of these algebras is the quotient of the polynomial ring modulo certain monomial ideal, while the other is the quotient of the polynomial ring modulo certain powers of linear forms. We describe the set of monomials that forms a linear basis in each of these two algebras. The basis elements correspond to G-parking functions that naturally came up in the abelian sandpile model. These ideals are instances of the general class of monotone monomial ideals and their deformations. We show that the Hilbert series of a monotone monomial ideal is always bounded by the Hilbert series of its deformation. Then we define an even more general class of monomial ideals associated with posets and construct free resolutions for these ideals. In some cases these resolutions coincide with Scarf resolutions. We prove several formulas for Hilbert series of monotone monomial ideals and investigate when they are equal to Hilbert series of deformations. In the appendix we discuss the sandpile model.

math.CO↗
arXiv2002

Affine approach to quantum Schubert calculus

This article presents a formula for products of Schubert classes in the quantum cohomology ring of the Grassmannian. We introduce a generalization of Schur symmetric polynomials for shapes that are naturally embedded in a torus. Then we show that the coefficients in the expansion of these toric Schur polynomials, in terms of the regular Schur polynomials, are exactly the 3-point Gromov-Witten invariants; which are the structure constants of the quantum cohomology ring. This construction implies that the Gromov-Witten invariants of the Grassmannian are invariant with respect to the action of a twisted product of the groups S_3, (Z/nZ)^2, and Z/2Z. The last group gives a certain strange duality of the quantum cohomologythat inverts the quantum parameter q. Our construction gives a solution to a problem posed by Fulton and Woodward about the characterization of the powers of the quantum parameter q that occur with nonzero coefficients in the quantum product of two Schubert classes. The strange duality switches the smallest such power of q with the highest power. We also discuss the affine nil-Temperley-Lieb algebra that gives a model for the quantum cohomology.

math.CO↗
arXiv2002

PP-wave string interactions from perturbative Yang-Mills theory

Recently, Berenstein et al. have proposed a duality between a sector of N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory with large R-charge J, and string theory in a pp-wave background. In the limit considered, the effective 't Hooft coupling has been argued to be lambda'=g_{YM}^2 N/J^2=1/(mu p^+ alpha')^2. We study Yang-Mills theory at small lambda' (large mu) with a view to reproducing string interactions. We demonstrate that the effective genus counting parameter of the Yang-Mills theory is g_2^2=J^4/N^2=(4 pi g_s)^2 (mu p^+ alpha')^4, the effective two-dimensional Newton constant for strings propagating on the pp-wave background. We identify g_2 sqrt{lambda'} as the effective coupling between a wide class of excited string states on the pp-wave background. We compute the anomalous dimensions of BMN operators at first order in g_2^2 and lambda' and interpret our result as the genus one mass renormalization of the corresponding string state. We postulate a relation between the three-string vertex function and the gauge theory three-point function and compare our proposal to string field theory. We utilize this proposal, together with quantum mechanical perturbation theory, to recompute the genus one energy shift of string states, and find precise agreement with our earlier computation.

hep-th↗
arXiv2002

Quantum Bruhat graph and Schubert polynomials

The quantum Bruhat graph, which is an extension of the graph formed by covering relations in the Bruhat order, is naturally related to the quantum cohomology ring of G/B. We enhance a result of Fulton and Woodward by showing that the minimal monomial in the quantum parameters that occurs in the quantum product of two Schubert classes has a simple interpretation in terms of directed paths in this graph. We define path Schubert polynomials, which are quantum cohomology analogues of skew Schubert polynomials recently introduced by Lenart and Sottile. They are given by sums over paths in the quantum Bruhat graph of type A. The 3-point Gromov-Witten invariants for the flag manifold are expressed in terms of these polynomials. This construction gives a combinatorial description for the set of all monomials in the quantum parameters that occur in the quantum product of two Schubert classes.

math.CO↗
arXiv2000

Hecke Algebra Actions on the Coinvariant Algebra

Two actions of the Hecke algebra of type A on the corresponding polynomial ring are studied. Both are deformations of the natural action of the symmetric group on polynomials, and keep symmetric functions invariant. We give an explicit description of these actions, and deduce a combinatorial formula for the resulting graded characters on the coinvariant algebra.

math.RT↗
arXiv2000

On Characters of Weyl Groups

In this note a combinatorial formula related to the symmetric group is generalized to an arbitrary finite Weyl group.

math.RT↗
arXiv1999

Littlewood-Richardson Coefficients via Yang-Baxter Equation

The purpose of this paper is to present an interpretation for the decomposition of the tensor product of two or more irreducible representations of GL(N) in terms of a system of quantum particles. Our approach is based on a certain scattering matrix that satisfies a Yang-Baxter type equation. The corresponding piecewise-linear transformations of parameters give a solution to the tetrahedron equation. These transformation maps are naturally related to the dual canonical bases for modules over the quantum enveloping algebra $U_q(sl_n)$. A byproduct of our construction is an explicit description for the cone of Kashiwara's parametrizations of dual canonical bases. This solves a problem posed by Berenstein and Zelevinsky. We present a graphical interpretation of the scattering matrices in terms of web functions, which are related to honeycombs of Knutson and Tao.

math.QA↗
arXiv1999

Algebras of curvature forms on homogeneous manifolds

Let C(X) be the algebra generated by the curvature 2-forms of the standard hermitian line bundles over the complex homogeneous manifold X=G/B. We calculate the Hilbert polynomial of C(X) and give its presentation as a quotient of a polynomial ring. In particular, we show the dimension of C(X) is equal to the number of independent subsets of roots in the corresponding root system. As a tool we study a more general algebra associated with a point on a Grassmannian and calculate its Hilbert polynomial as well as its presentation in terms of generators and relations.

math.AG↗
arXiv1998

Mixed Bruhat operators and Yang-Baxter equations for Weyl groups

We introduce and study a family of operators which act in the span of a Weyl group $W$ and provide a multi-parameter solution to the quantum Yang-Baxter equations of the corresponding type. Our operators generalize the "quantum Bruhat operators" that appear in the explicit description of the multiplicative structure of the (small) quantum cohomology ring of $G/B$. The main combinatorial applications concern the "tilted Bruhat order," a graded poset whose unique minimal element is an arbitrarily chosen element $w\in W$. (The ordinary Bruhat order corresponds to the case $w=1$.) Using the mixed Bruhat operators, we prove that these posets are lexicographically shellable, and every interval in a tilted Bruhat order is Eulerian. This generalizes well known results of Verma, Bjorner, Wachs, and Dyer.

math.QA↗
arXiv1997

Deformations of Coxeter hyperplane arrangements

We investigate several hyperplane arrangements that can be viewed as deformations of Coxeter arrangements. In particular, we prove a conjecture of Linial and Stanley that the number of regions of the arrangement x_i - x_j = 1, 1 \leq i<j \leq n, is equal to the number of alternating trees on n+1 vertices. Remarkably, these numbers have several additional combinatorial interpretations in terms of binary trees, partially ordered sets, and tournaments. More generally, we give formulae for the number of regions and the Poincar'e polynomial of certain finite subarrangements of the affine Coxeter arrangement of type A_{n-1}. These formulae enable us to prove a "Riemann hypothesis" on the location of zeros of the Poincar'e polynomial. We also consider some generic deformations of Coxeter arrangements of type A_{n-1}.

math.CO↗