We construct closed immersions from initial degenerations of $\operatorname*{Gr}_{0}(d,n)$---the open cell in the Grassmannian $\operatorname*{Gr}(d,n)$ given by the nonvanishing of all Plücker coordinates---to limits of thin Schubert cells associated to diagrams induced by the face poset of the corresponding tropical linear space. These are isomorphisms when $(d,n)$ equals $(2,n)$, $(3,6)$ and $(3,7)$. As an application we prove $\operatorname*{Gr}_0(3,7)$ is schön, and the Chow quotient of $\operatorname*{Gr}(3,7)$ by the maximal torus in $ \operatorname*{PGL}(7)$ is the log canonical compactification of the moduli space of 7 points in $\mathbb{P}^2$ in linear general position, making progress on a conjecture of Hacking, Keel, and Tevelev.
We describe an algorithm for computing certain characteristic numbers of surface scrolls using degenerations. As a corollary we obtain a method for computing the corresponding Gromov-Witten invariants of Grassmannians.
We study degenerations of Grassmannians constructed using convex lattice configurations in Bruhat-Tits buildings. Using techniques from quiver representations, we analyze their special fibers, which are explicitly described as quiver Grassmannians. For a class of lattice configurations, called the locally linearly independent configurations, we show that our construction coincide with Mustafin degenerations, thus generalizing a result of Faltings. In such cases, our analysis of special fibers also generalizes results of Cartwright et al. As an application, we prove a smoothing criterion for li…
Using the method of degenerating a Grassmannian into a toric variety, we calculate recursive formulas for the dimensions of the eigenspaces of the action of an n-dimensional torus on a Grassmannian of planes in an n-dimensional space. In order to verify our result we compare it with the polynomial describing the Euler characteristic of invertible sheaves on a projective space with four blown-up points.
The most fundamental example of mirror symmetry compares the Fermat hypersurfaces in P^n and P^n/G, where G is a finite group that acts on P^n and preserves the Fermat hypersurface. We generalise this to hypersurfaces in Grassmannians, where the picture is richer and more complex. There is a finite group G that acts on the Grassmannian Gr(n,r) and preserves an appropriate Calabi-Yau hypersurface. We establish how mirror symmetry, toric degenerations, blow-ups and variation of GIT relate the Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces inside Gr(n,r) and Gr(n,r)/G. This allows us to describe a compactification of …
The minimal degeneration singularities in the affine Grassmannians of simple simply-laced algebraic groups are determined to be either Kleinian singularities of type A, or closures of minimal orbits in nilpotent cones. The singularities for non-simply-laced types are studied by intersection cohomology and equivariant Chow group methods.
We study toric degenerations of opposite Schubert and Richardson varieties inside degenerations of Grassmannians and flag varieties. These degenerations are parametrized by matching fields in the sense of Sturmfels and Zelevinsky. We construct so-called restricted matching field ideals whose generating sets are understood combinatorially through tableaux. We determine when these ideals are toric and coincide with Gröbner degenerations of Richardson varieties using the well established standard monomial theory for Grassmannians and flag varieties.
We present a review on the recently discovered link between the Lie theory,the theory of quiver Grassmannians, and various degenerations of flag varieties. Our starting point is the induced Poincaré--Birkhoff--Witt filtration on the highest weight representations and the corresponding PBW degenerate flag varieties.
We study toric degenerations of semi-infinite Grassmannians (a.k.a. quantum Grassmannians). While the toric degenerations of the classical Grassmannians are well studied, the only known example in the semi-infinite case is due to Sottile-Sturmfels. We start by providing a new interpretation of the Sottile-Sturmfels construction by finding a poset such that their degeneration is the toric variety of the order polytope of the poset. We then use our poset to construct and study a new toric degeneration in the semi-infinite case. Our construction is based on the notion of poset polytopes introduce…
We study the algebraic geometry and combinatorics of the central degeneration (the degeneration that shows up in local models of Shimura varieties and Gaitsgory's central sheaves) in type A. More specifically, we elucidate the central degeneration of semi-infinite orbits and explain its relations with Levi restriction. Also, we discuss the central degeneration of Mirkovi$\acute{\text{c}}$-Vilonen cycles in the affine Grassmannian, and the corresponding transformations of Mirkovi$\acute{\text{c}}$-Vilonen polytopes. In addition, we shed some light on the geometry of Iwahori MV cycles in the aff…
We introduce a completely integrable system on the Grassmannian of 2-planes in an n-space associated with any triangulation of a polygon with n sides, and compute the potential function for its Lagrangian torus fiber. The moment polytopes of this system for different triangulations are related by an integral piecewise-linear transformation, and the corresponding potential functions are related by its geometric lift in the sense of Berenstein and Zelevinsky.
We study the algebraic combinatorics of monomial degenerations of Plücker forms which is governed by matching fields in the sense of Sturmfels and Zelevinsky. We provide a necessary condition for a matching field to yield a Khovanskii basis of the Plücker algebra for $3$-planes in $n$-space. When the ideal associated to the matching field is quadratically generated this condition is both necessary and sufficient. Finally, we describe a family of matching fields, called $2$-block diagonal, whose ideals are quadratically generated. These matching fields produce a new family of toric degeneration…
We establish an explicit bijection between the toric degenerations of the Grassmannian $\textrm{Gr}(2,n)$ arising from maximal cones in tropical Grassmannians and the ones coming from plabic graphs corresponding to $\textrm{Gr}(2,n)$. We show that a similar statement does not hold for $\textrm{Gr}(3,6)$.
We prove that the open subvariety $\operatorname{Gr}_0(3,8)$ of the Grassmannian $\operatorname{Gr}(3,8)$ determined by the nonvanishing of all Plücker coordinates is schön, i.e., all of its initial degenerations are smooth. Furthermore, we find an initial degeneration that has two connected components, and show that the remaining initial degenerations, up to symmetry, are irreducible. As an application, we prove that the Chow quotient of $\operatorname{Gr}(3,8)$ by the diagonal torus of $\operatorname{PGL}(8)$ is the log canonical compactification of the moduli space of $8$ lines in $\mathbb{…
We construct a family of compactifications of the affine cone of the Grassmannian variety of 2-planes. We show that both the tropical variety of the Plücker ideal and familiar valuations associated to the construction of Newton-Okounkov bodies for the Grassmannian variety can be recovered from these compactifications. In this way, we unite various perspectives for constructing toric degenerations of flag varieties.
Linear degenerate flag varieties are degenerations of flag varieties as quiver Grassmannians. For type A flag varieties, we obtain characterizations of flatness, irreducibility and normality of these degenerations via rank tuples. Some of them are shown to be isomorphic to Schubert varieties and can be realized as highest weight orbits of partially degenerate Lie algebras, generalizing the corresponding results on degenerate flag varieties. To study normality, cell decompositions of quiver Grassmannians are constructed in a wider context of equioriented quivers of type A.
We introduce iterated sequences for Grassmannians, a new class of Fang-Fourier-Littelmanns' birational sequences and explain how they give rise to points in $\text{trop}(\text{Gr}(k,\mathbb C^n))$, Speyer-Sturmfels' tropical Grassmannian. For $\text{Gr}(2,\mathbb C^n)$ we show that the associated valuations induce toric degenerations. We describe recursively the vertices of the corresponding Newton--Okounkov polytopes, which are particular vertices of a hypercube and hence integral. We show further that every toric degeneration of $\text{Gr}(2,\mathbb C^{n})$ constructed using the tropical Gra…
Let $Q^*$ denote the dual of the quotient bundle on the Grassmannian $G(2,n)$. We prove that the ideal of $Q^*$ in its natural embedding has initial ideal equal to the Stanley-Reisner ideal of a certain unobstructed simplicial complex. Furthermore, we show that the coordinate ring of $Q^*$ has no infinitesimal deformations for $n>5$.
Let $V$ be the weighted projective variety defined by a weighted homogeneous ideal $J$ and $C$ a maximal cone in the Gröbner fan of $J$ with $m$ rays. We construct a flat family over $\mathbb A^m$ that assembles the Gröbner degenerations of $V$ associated with all faces of $C$. This is a multi-parameter generalization of the classical one-parameter Gröbner degeneration associated to a weight. We explain how our family can be constructed from Kaveh-Manon's recent work on the classification of toric flat families over toric varieties: it is the pull-back of a toric family defined by a Rees algeb…
The degeneration of the hyperelliptic sigma function is studied. We use the Sato Grassmannian for this purpose. A simple decomposition of a rational function gives a decomposition of Plücker coordinates of a frame of the Sato Grassmannian. It then gives a decomposition of the tau function corresponding to the degeneration of a hyperelliptic curve of genus $g$ in terms of the tau functions corresponding to a hyperelliptic curve of genus $g-1$. Since the tau functions are described by sigma functions, we get the corresponding formula for the degenerate hyperelliptic sigma function.
We construct closed immersions from initial degenerations of the spinor variety $\mathbb{S}_n$ to inverse limits of strata associated to even $Δ$-matroids. As an application, we prove that these initial degenerations are smooth and irreducible for $n\leq 5$ and identify the log canonical model of the Chow quotient of $\mathbb{S}_5$ by the action of the diagonal torus of $\operatorname{GL}(5)$.
We continue, generalize and expand our study of linear degenerations of flag varieties from [G. Cerulli Irelli, X. Fang, E. Feigin, G. Fourier, M. Reineke, Math. Z. 287 (2017), no. 1-2, 615-654]. We realize partial flag varieties as quiver Grassmannians for equi-oriented type A quivers and construct linear degenerations by varying the corresponding quiver representation. We prove that there exists the deepest flat degeneration and the deepest flat irreducible degeneration: the former is the partial analogue of the mf-degenerate flag variety and the latter coincides with the partial PBW-degener…
Via a natural degeneration of Grassmannian manifolds $G(k,n)$ to Gorenstein toric Fano varieties $P(k,n)$ with conifold singularities, we suggest an approach to study the relation between the tautological system on $G(k,n)$ and the extended GKZ system on the small resolution $\hat{P}(k,n)$ of $P(k,n)$. We carry out the simplest case $(k,n)=(2,4)$ to ensure its validity and show that the extended GKZ system can be regarded as a tautological system on $\hat{P}(2,4)$.
A Richardson variety $X_\ga^\gc$ in the Orthogonal Grassmannian is defined to be the intersection of a Schubert variety $X^\gc$ in the Orthogonal Grassmannian and a opposite Schubert variety $X_\ga$ therein. We give an explicit description of the initial ideal (with respect to certain conveniently chosen term order) for the ideal of the tangent cone at any $T$-fixed point of $X_\ga^\gc$, thus generalizing a result of Raghavan-Upadhyay \cite{Ra-Up2}. Our proof is based on a generalization of the Robinson-Schensted-Knuth (RSK) correspondence, which we call the Orthogonal bounded RSK (OBRSK). The…
We compute the initial ideals, with respect to certain conveniently chosen term orders, of ideals of tangent cones at torus fixed points to Schubert varieties in orthogonal Grassmannians. The initial ideals turn out to be square-free monomial ideals and therefore Stanley-Reisner face rings of simplicial complexes. We describe these complexes. The maximal faces of these complexes encode certain sets of non-intersecting lattice paths.
We resolve a conjecture about a class of binomial initial ideals of $I_{2,n}$, the ideal of the Grassmannian, Gr$(2,\mathbb{C}^n$), which are associated to phylogenetic trees. For a weight vector $ω$ in the tropical Grassmannian, $in_ω(I_{2,n}) = J_\mathcal{T}$ is the ideal associated to the tree $\mathcal{T}$. The ideal generated by the $2r \times 2r$ subpfaffians of a generic $n \times n$ skew-symmetric matrix is precisely $I_{2,n}^{\{r-1\}}$, the $(r-1)$-secant of $I_{2,n}$. We prove necessary and sufficient conditions on the topology of $\mathcal{T}$ in order for $in_ω(I_{2,n})^{\{2\}} = J…
Mustafin varieties are flat degenerations of projective spaces, induced by a choice of an $n-$tuple of lattices in a vector space over a non-archimedean field. They were introduced by Mustafin in the 70s in order to generalise Mumford's groundbreaking work on the unformisation of curves to higher dimension. These varieties have a rich combinatorial structure as can be seen in pioneering work of Cartwright, Häbich, Sturmfels and Werner. In this paper, we introduce a new approach to Mustafin varieties in terms of images of rational maps, which were studied by Li. Applying tropical intersection t…
In tropical algebraic geometry, the solution sets of polynomial equations are piecewise-linear. We introduce the tropical variety of a polynomial ideal, and we identify it with a polyhedral subcomplex of the Grobner fan. The tropical Grassmannian arises in this manner from the ideal of quadratic Plucker relations. It is shown to parametrize all tropical linear spaces. Lines in tropical projective space are trees, and their tropical Grassmannian G_{2,n} equals the space of phylogenetic trees studied by Billera, Holmes and Vogtmann. Higher Grassmannians offer a natural generalization of the spac…
What kind of reduced monomial schemes can be obtained as a Gröbner degeneration of a smooth projective variety? Our conjectured answer is: only Stanley-Reisner schemes associated to acyclic Cohen-Macaulay simplicial complexes. This would imply, in particular, that only curves of genus zero have such a degeneration. We prove this conjecture for degrevlex orders, for elliptic curves over real number fields, for boundaries of cross-polytopes, and for leafless graphs. We discuss consequences for rational and F-rational singularities of algebras with straightening laws.
Let $V(I)$ be a polarized projective variety or a subvariety of a product of projective spaces and let $A$ be its (multi-)homogeneous coordinate ring. Given a full-rank valuation $\mathfrak v$ on $A$ we associate weights to the coordinates of the projective space, respectively, the product of projective spaces. Let $w_{\mathfrak v}$ be the vector whose entries are these weights. Our main result is that the value semi-group of $\mathfrak v$ is generated by the images of the generators of $A$ if and only if the initial ideal of $I$ with respect to $w_{\mathfrak v}$ is prime. We further show that…
Consider a rational map from a projective space to a product of projective spaces, induced by a collection of linear projections. Motivated by the the theory of limit linear series and Abel-Jacobi maps, we study the basic properties of the closure of the image of the rational map using a combination of techniques of moduli functors and initial degenerations. We first give a formula of multi-degree in terms of the dimensions of intersections of linear subspaces and then prove that it is Cohen-Macaulay. Finally, we compute its Hilbert polynomials.
