Galois groups of Schubert problems via homotopy computation
Institute for Mathematics；its Applications University of Minnesota Minneapolis MN \ 55455 USA；Department of Mathematics Texas A\&M University College Station Texas \ 77843 USA
Numerical homotopy continuation of solutions to polynomial equations is the foundation for numerical algebraic geometry, whose development has been driven by applications of mathematics. We use numerical homotopy continuation to investigate the problem in pure mathematics of determining Galois groups in the Schubert calculus. For example, we show by direct computation that the Galois group of the Schubert problem of 3-planes in C^8 meeting 15 fixed 5-planes non-trivially is the full symmetric group S_6006.
We develop the Littlewood-Richardson homotopy algorithm, which uses numerical continuation to compute solutions to Schubert problems on Grassmannians and is based on the geometric Littlewood-Richardson rule. One key ingredient of this algorithm is our new optimal formulation of Schubert problems in local Stiefel coordinates as systems of equations. Our implementation can solve problem instances with tens of thousands of solutions.
The Galois group of a Schubert problem encodes some structure of its set of solutions. Galois groups are known for a few infinite families and some special problems, but what permutation groups may appear as a Galois group of a Schubert problem is still unknown. We expand the list of Schubert problems with known Galois groups by fully exploring the Schubert problems on $\text{Gr}(4,9)$, the smallest Grassmannian for which they are not currently known. We also discover sets of Schubert conditions for any sufficiently large Grassmannian that imply the Galois group of a Schubert problem is much s…
We classify Schubert problems in the Grassmannian of 4-planes in 9-dimensional space by their Galois groups. Of the 31,806 essential Schubert problems in this Grassmannian, there are only 149 whose Galois group does not contain the alternating group. We identify the Galois groups of these 149 -- each is an imprimitive permutation group. These 149 fall into two families according to their geometry. This study suggests a possible classification of Schubert problems whose Galois group is not the full symmetric group, and it begins to establish the inverse Galois problem for Schubert calculus.
Two Schubert problems on possibly different Grassmannians may be composed to obtain a Schubert problem on a larger Grassmannian whose number of solutions is the product of the numbers of the original problems. This generalizes a construction discovered while classifying Schubert problems on the Grassmannian of 4-planes in C^9 with imprimitive Galois groups. We give an algebraic proof of the product formula. In a number of cases, we show that the Galois group of the composed Schubert problem is a subgroup of a wreath product of the Galois groups of the original problems, and is therefore imprim…
The Macaulay2 package NumericalSchubertCalculus provides methods for the numerical computation of Schubert problems on Grassmannians. It implements both the Pieri homotopy algorithm and the Littlewood-Richardson homotopy algorithm. Each algorithm has two independent implementations in this package. One is in the scripting language of Macaulay2 using the package NumericalAlgebraicGeometry, and the other is in the compiled code of PHCpack.
In this note we show that the protruncated shape of a spectral $\infty$-topos is a delocalization of its profinite stratified shape. This gives a way to reconstruct the extended étale homotopy groups (i.e., the non-profinitely complete étale homotopy groups) of a coherent scheme from its profinite Galois category.
This paper gives an introduction to homotopy descent, and its applications in algebraic $K$-theory computations for fields. On the étale site of a field, a fibrant model of a simplicial presheaf can be constructed from naive Galois cohomological objects given by homotopy fixed point constructions, but only up to pro-equivalence. The homotopy fixed point spaces define finite Galois descent for simplicial presheaves (and their relatives) over a field, but a pro-categorical construction is a necessary second step for passage from finite descent conditions to full homotopy descent in a Galois coho…
In previous work, the authors constructed and studied a lift of the Galois correspondence to stable homotopy categories. In particular, if $L/k$ is a finite Galois extension of fields with Galois group $G$, there is a functor $c_{L/k}^*$ from the $G$-equivariant stable homotopy category to the stable motivic homotopy category over $k$ such that $c_{L/k}^*(G/H_+) = Spec(L^H)_+$. We proved that when $k$ is a real closed field and $L=k[i]$, the restriction of $c_{L/k}^*$ to the $η$-complete subcategory is full and faithful. Here we "uncomplete" this theorem so that it applies to $c_{L/k}^*$ itsel…
For a global field, local field, or finite field $k$ with infinite Galois group, we show that there can not exist a functor from the Morel--Voevodsky $\mathbb{A}^1$-homotopy category of schemes over $k$ to a genuine Galois equivariant homotopy category satisfying a list of hypotheses one might expect from a genuine equivariant category and an étale realization functor. For example, these hypotheses are satisfied by genuine $\mathbb{Z}/2$-spaces and the $\mathbb{R}$-realization functor constructed by Morel--Voevodsky. This result does not contradict the existence of étale realization functors t…
We prove that the monodromy group of a reduced irreducible square system of general polynomial equations equals the symmetric group. This is a natural first step towards the Galois theory of general systems of polynomial equations, because arbitrary systems split into reduced irreducible ones upon monomial changes of variables. In particular, our result proves the multivariate version of the Abel--Ruffini theorem: the classification of general systems of equations solvable by radicals reduces to the classification of lattice polytopes of mixed volume 4 (which we prove to be finite in every dim…
We review some ideas of Grothendieck and others on actions of the absolute Galois group Γ Q of Q (the automorphism group of the tower of finite extensions of Q), related to the geometry and topology of surfaces (mapping class groups, Teichm{ü}ller spaces and moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces). Grothendieck's motivation came in part from his desire to understand the absolute Galois group. But he was also interested in Thurston's work on surfaces, and he expressed this in his Esquisse d'un programme, his R{é}coltes et semailles and on other occasions. He introduced the notions of dessin d'enfant…
