Edge vectors on plabic networks in the disk and amalgamation of totally non-negative Grassmannians
Simonetta Abenda, Petr G. Grinevich
备注：
v1: 63 pages, this paper is the fully revised second part of Arxiv:1801.00208; v2: 52 pages, revised sections 6 (previously sec. 5) and 7.V3: 59 pages, added new results; V4: 46 pages: revision of Section 7, added comparison between Kasteleyn orientation and geometric signature
Amalgamation in the totally non-negative part of positroid varieties is equivalent to gluing copies of $Gr^{TP}(1,3)$ and $Gr^{TP}(2,3)$. Lam has proposed to represent amalgamation in positroid varieties by equivalence classes of relations on bipartite graphs and identify total non-negativity via edge signatures. Here we provide an explicit characterization of such signatures on the planar bicolored trivalent directed perfect networks in the disk parametrizing positroid cells $S_M^{TNN}$.To a graph $G$ representing $S_M^{TNN}$, we associate a geometric signature satisfying full rank condition and total non--negativity. Such signature is uniquely identified by geometric indices ruled by orientation and gauge ray direction. The image of this map coincides with that of Postnikov boundary measurement map. We solve the system of geometric relations generalizing Postnikov's and Talaska's results for the boundary edges to the internal edges of the graphs: the edge vector components are rational in the weights with subtraction--free denominators, and have explicit expressions in terms of conservative and edge flows. At boundary sources the edge vectors give the boundary measurement matrix. If $G$ is acyclically orientable, all components are subtraction-free rational in the weights w.r.t. a convenient basis. We provide explicit formulas for the transformation rules w.r.t. changes the orientation, the several gauges of the given network, moves and reductions of networks. We show that the image of the boundary measurement map and the dimer partition functions do not coincide if the graph is not bipartite.
A plabic graph is a planar bicolored graph embedded in a disk, which satisfies some combinatorial conditions. Postnikov's boundary measurement map takes the space of positive edge weights of a plabic graph $G$ to a positroid cell in some totally nonnegative Grassmannian. In this note, we investigate plabic graphs which are symmetric about a line of reflection, up to reversing the colors of vertices. These symmetric plabic graphs arise naturally in the study of total positivity for the Lagrangian Grassmannian. We characterize various combinatorial objects associated with symmetric plabic graphs…
The nonnegative Grassmannian is a cell complex with rich geometric, algebraic, and combinatorial structures. Its study involves interesting combinatorial objects, such as positroids and plabic graphs. Remarkably, the same combinatorial structures appeared in many other areas of mathematics and physics, e.g., in the study of cluster algebras, scattering amplitudes, and solitons. We discuss new ways to think about these structures. In particular, we identify plabic graphs and more general Grassmannian graphs with polyhedral subdivisions induced by 2-dimensional projections of hypersimplices. Thi…
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 $\textrm{Gr}(3,6)$.
It is known that the homogeneous coordinate ring of a Grassmannian has a cluster structure, which is induced from the combinatorial structure of a plabic graph. A plabic graph is a certain bipartite graph described on the disk, and there is a family of plabic graphs giving a cluster structure of the same Grassmannian. Such plabic graphs are related by the operation called square move which can be considered as the mutation in cluster theory. By using a plabic graph, we also obtain the Newton--Okounkov polytope which gives a toric degeneration of the Grassmannian. The purposes of this article i…
Postnikov's plabic graphs in a disk are used to parametrize totally positive Grassmannians. In recent years plabic graphs have found numerous applications in math and physics. One of the key features of the theory is the fact that if a plabic graph is reduced, the face weights can be uniquely recovered from boundary measurements. On surfaces more complicated than a disk this property is lost. In this paper we undertake a comprehensive study of a certain semi-local transformation of weights for plabic networks on a cylinder that preserve boundary measurements. We call this a plabic R-matrix. We…
Planar bicolored (plabic) graphs are combinatorial objects introduced by Postnikov to give parameterizations of the positroid cells of the totally nonnegative Grassmannian $\text{Gr}^{\geq 0}(n,k)$. Any two plabic graphs for the same positroid cell can be related by a sequence of certain moves. The flip graph has plabic graphs as vertices and has edges connecting the plabic graphs which are related by a single move. A recent result of Galashin shows that plabic graphs can be seen as cross-sections of zonotopal tilings for the cyclic zonotope $Z(n,3)$. Taking this perspective, we show that the …
Leclerc and Zelevinsky described quasicommuting families of quantum minors in terms of a certain combinatorial condition, called weak separation. They conjectured that all maximal by inclusion weakly separated collections of minors have the same cardinality, and that they can be related to each other by a sequence of mutations. On the other hand, Postnikov studied total positivity on the Grassmannian. He described a stratification of the totally nonnegative Grassmannian into positroid strata, and constructed their parametrization using plabic graphs. In this paper we link the study of weak sep…
Plabic graphs are interesting combinatorial objects used to study the totally nonnegative Grassmannian. Faces of plabic graphs are labeled by $k$-element sets of positive integers, and a collection of such $k$-element sets are the face labels of a plabic graph if that collection forms a maximal weakly separated collection. There are moves that one can apply to plabic graphs, and thus to maximal weakly separated collections, analogous to mutations of seeds in cluster algebras. In this short note, we show that if two maximal weakly separated collections can be mutated from one to another, then o…
In this article we explain how the coordinate ring of each (open) Schubert variety in the Grassmannian can be identified with a cluster algebra, whose combinatorial structure is encoded using (target labelings of) Postnikov's plabic graphs. This result generalizes a theorem of Scott (Scott 2006) for the Grassmannian, and proves a folklore conjecture for Schubert varieties that has been believed by experts since (Scott 2006), though the statement was not formally written down until Müller-Speyer explicitly conjectured it (Müller-Speyer 2016). To prove this conjecture we use a result of Leclerc …
Plabic graphs are intimately connected to the positroid stratification of the positive Grassmannian. The duals to these graphs are quivers, and it is possible to associate to them cluster algebras. For the top-cell graph of $Gr_{+}(k,n)$, this cluster algebra is the homogeneous coordinate ring of the corresponding positroid variety. We prove that the same statement holds for plabic graphs describing lower dimensional cells. In this way we obtain a map from the positroid strata onto cluster subalgebras of $Gr_{+}(k,n)$. We explore some of the consequences of this map for tree-level scattering a…
The standard parametrization of totally non-negative Grassmannians was obtained by A. Postnikov [45] introducing the boundary measurement map in terms of discrete path integration on planar bicolored (plabic) graphs in the disk. An alternative parametrization was proposed by T. Lam [38] introducing systems of relations on vectors on such graphs, depending on some signatures defined on edges. The problem of characterizing the signatures corresponding to the totally non-negative cells, was left open in [38]. In our paper we provide an explicit construction of such signatures, satisfying both the…
Given a configuration $A$ of $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^{d-1}$, we introduce the higher secondary polytopes $Σ_{A,1},\dots, Σ_{A,n-d}$, which have the property that $Σ_{A,1}$ agrees with the secondary polytope of Gelfand--Kapranov--Zelevinsky, while the Minkowski sum of these polytopes agrees with Billera--Sturmfels' fiber zonotope associated with (a lift of) $A$. In a special case when $d=3$, we refer to our polytopes as higher associahedra. They turn out to be related to the theory of total positivity, specifically, to certain combinatorial objects called plabic graphs, introduced by the seco…
The many intricate connections between scattering amplitudes, on-shell diagrams, and the positroid stratification of the Grassmannian has recently been described in great detail. In order to facilitate the exploration of this rich correspondence, we have prepared a public Mathematica package called "positroids" which includes an array of useful tools including those for the construction of canonical coordinates for positroid configurations, the drawing of representative on-shell (plabic) graphs, and the evaluation of on-shell differential forms. This note documents the functions made available…
Le-diagrams are combinatorial objects that parametrize cells of the totally nonnegative Grassmannian, called positroid cells, and each Le-diagram gives rise to a cluster algebra which is believed to be isomorphic to the coordinate ring of the corresponding positroid variety. We study quivers arising from these diagrams and show that they can be constructed from the well-behaved quivers associated to Grassmannians by deleting and merging certain vertices. Then, we prove that quivers coming from arbitrary Le-diagrams, and more generally reduced plabic graphs, admit a particular sequence of mutat…
The Grassmannian is a disjoint union of open positroid varieties $P_v$, certain smooth irreducible subvarieties whose definition is motivated by total positivity. The coordinate ring of $P_v$ is a cluster algebra, and each reduced plabic graph $G$ for $P_v$ determines a cluster. We study the effect of relabeling the boundary vertices of $G$ by a permutation $r$. Under suitable hypotheses on the permutation, we show that the relabeled graph $G^r$ determines a cluster for a different open positroid variety $P_w$. As a key step of the proof, we show that $P_v$ and $P_w$ are isomorphic by a nontri…
We give an explicit combinatorial description of cluster structures in Schubert varieties of the Grassmannian in terms of (target labelings of) Postnikov's plabic graphs. This description is a natural generalization of the description given by (Scott 2006) for the Grassmannian and has been believed by experts essentially since (Scott 2006), though the statement was not formally written down until (Müller-Speyer 2016). To prove this conjecture we use a result of (Leclerc 2016), who used the module category of the preprojective algebra to prove that coordinate rings of many Richardson varieties …
We initiate the study of a class of polytopes, which we coin polypositroids, defined to be those polytopes that are simultaneously generalized permutohedra (or polymatroids) and alcoved polytopes. Whereas positroids are the matroids arising from the totally nonnegative Grassmannian, polypositroids are "positive" polymatroids. We parametrize polypositroids using Coxeter necklaces and balanced graphs, and describe the cone of polypositroids by extremal rays and facet inequalities. We introduce a notion of (W,c)-polypositroid for a finite Weyl group W and a choice of Coxeter element c. We connect…
The KP equation is a nonlinear dispersive wave equation which provides an excellent model for resonant interactions of shallow-water waves. It is well known that regular soliton solutions of the KP equation may be constructed from points in the totally nonnegative Grassmannian Gr$(N,M)_{\geq 0}$. Kodama and Williams studied the asymptotic patterns (tropical limit) of KP solitons, called soliton graphs, and showed that they correspond to Postnikov's Le-diagrams. In this paper, we consider soliton graphs for the KP hierarchy, a family of commuting flows which are compatible with the KP equation.…
Following [42], positroid cells ${\mathcal S}_{\mathcal M}^{\mbox{TNN}}$ in totally non-negative Grassmannians ${Gr^{\mbox{TNN}} (k,n)}$ admit parametrizations by positive weights on planar bicolored directed perfect networks in the disk. An explicit formula for elements of matrices representing the points in ${\mathcal S}_{\mathcal M}^{\mbox{TNN}}$ was obtained in [49] in terms of flows on such networks. The formulas from [42,49] are defined on the boundary edge vectors. In this paper we propose an extension of these formulas for vectors on internal edges defined as summations over paths on t…
We study the dimer model for a planar bipartite graph N embedded in a disk, with boundary vertices on the boundary of the disk. Counting dimer configurations with specified boundary conditions gives a point in the totally nonnegative Grassmannian. Considering pairing probabilities for the double-dimer model gives rise to Grassmann analogues of Rhoades and Skandera's Temperley-Lieb immanants. The same problem for the (probably novel) triple-dimer model gives rise to the combinatorics of Kuperberg's webs and Grassmann analogues of Pylyavskyy's web immanants. This draws a connection between the s…
