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 algebra with base $X_C$ (the toric variety associated to $C$) along the universal torsor $\mathbb A^m \to X_C$. We apply this construction to the Grassmannians ${\rm Gr}(2,\mathbb C^n)$ with their Plücker embeddings and the Grassmannian ${\rm Gr}\big(3,\mathbb C^6\big)$ with its cluster embedding. In each case, there exists a unique maximal Gröbner cone whose associated initial ideal is the Stanley-Reisner ideal of the cluster complex. We show that the corresponding cluster algebra with universal coefficients arises as the algebra defining the flat family associated to this cone. Further, for ${\rm Gr}(2,\mathbb C^n)$ we show how Escobar-Harada's mutation of Newton-Okounkov bodies can be recovered as tropicalized cluster mutation.
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 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 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 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…
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…
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 …
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 compac…
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 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 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…
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 compute toric degenerations arising from the tropicalization of the full flag varieties $\mathcal{F}\ell_4$ and $\mathcal{F}\ell_5$ embedded in a product of Grassmannians. For $\mathcal{F}\ell_4$ and $\mathcal{F}\ell_5$ we compare toric degenerations arising from string polytopes and the FFLV polytope with those obtained from the tropicalization of the flag varieties. We also present a general procedure to find toric degenerations in the cases where the initial ideal arising from a cone of the tropicalization of a variety is not prime.
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 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.
In this thesis we study toric degenerations of projective varieties. We compare different constructions to understand how and why they are related as s first step towards developing a global framework. In focus are toric degenerations obtained from representation theory, tropical geometry and cluster algebras. Often those rely on valuations and the theory of Newton-Okounkov bodies. Toric degenerations can be seen as a combinatorial shadow of the original objects. The goal is therefore to understand why the different theories are so closely related, by understanding the toric degenerations they…
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 $n>5$.
We show that the moduli space of stable n-pointed rational curves can be flatly degenerated to a projective toric variety. We arrive at this by showing that the Chow quotients of the Grassmannians admit toric degenerations, which in turn, follows from a theorem that we prove for toric degenerations of more general Chow quotients. Along the way, we also argued that GIT quotient of a flat family is again flat. In particular, all GIT quotients of flag varieties by maximal tori can be flatly degenerated to projective toric varieties ([9] and [12]).
We show that the tropical projective Grassmannian of planes is homeomorphic to a closed subset of the analytic Grassmannian in Berkovich's sense by constructing a continuous section to the tropicalization map. Our main tool is an explicit description of the algebraic coordinate rings of the toric strata of the Grassmannian. We determine the fibers of the tropicalization map and compute the initial degenerations of all the toric strata. As a consequence, we prove that the tropical multiplicities of all points in the tropical projective Grassmannian are equal to one. Finally, we determine a piec…
We study Hilbert-Samuel multiplicity for points of Schubert varieties in the complete flag variety, by Groebner degenerations of the Kazhdan-Lusztig ideal. In the covexillary case, we give a positive combinatorial rule for multiplicity by establishing (with a Groebner basis) a reduced and equidimensional limit whose Stanley-Reisner simplicial complex is homeomorphic to a shellable ball or sphere. We show that multiplicity counts the number of facets of this complex. We also obtain a formula for the Hilbert series of the local ring. In particular, our work gives a multiplicity rule for Grassman…
We derive a Givental-type stationary phase integral representation for the specified $\Gr_{m,N}$-Whittaker function introduced in \cite{GLO2}, which presumably describes the $S^1\times U_N$-equivariant Gromov-Witten invariants of Grassmann variety $\Gr_{m,N}$. Our main tool is a generalization of Whittaker model for principal series $\CU(\frak{gl}_N)$-modules. In particular, our construction includes a representation theory interpretation of the Batyrev--Ciocan-Fontanine--Kim--van Straten toric degeneration of Grassmannian, providing a direct connection between this toric degeneration of $\Gr_…
We construct a family of flat semitoric degenerations for the Hibi variety of every finite distributive lattice. The irreducible components of each degeneration are the toric varieties associated with polytopes forming a regular subdivision of the order polytope of the underlying poset. These components are themselves Hibi varieties. For each degeneration in our family we also define the corresponding weight polytope and embed the degeneration into the associated toric variety as the union of orbit closures given by a set of faces. Every such weight polytope projects onto the order polytope wi…
We study the relation between the integer tropical points of a cluster variety (satisfying the full Fock-Goncharov conjecture) and the totally positive part of the tropicalization of an ideal presenting the corresponding cluster algebra. Suppose we are given a presentation of the cluster algebra by a Khovanskii basis for a collection of ${\bf g}$-vector valuations associated with several seeds related by mutations. In presence of a full rank fully extended exchange matrix we construct the rays of a subfan of the totally positive part of the tropicalization of the ideal that coincides combinato…
In this paper we propose and discuss a mirror construction for complete intersections in partial flag manifolds $F(n_1, ..., n_l, n)$. This construction includes our previous mirror construction for complete intersection in Grassmannians and the mirror construction of Givental for complete flag manifolds. The key idea of our construction is a degeneration of $F(n_1, ..., n_l, n)$ to a certain Gorenstein toric Fano variety $P(n_1, ..., n_l, n)$ which has been investigated by Gonciulea and Lakshmibai. We describe a natural small crepant desingularization of $P(n_1, ..., n_l, n)$ and prove a gene…
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…
We compute presentations for a family of semigroup algebras related to the problem of decomposing $sl_3(\mathbb{C})$ tensor products. Along the way we find new toric degenerations of the Grassmannian variety $Gr_3(\mathbb{C}^n)$ which $T-$invariant for $T \subset GL_n(\mathbb{C})$ the diagonal torus.
A congruence is a surface in the Grassmannian ${\rm Gr}(2, 4)$. In this paper, we consider the normalization of congruence of bitangents to a hypersurface in $\mathbb P^3$. We call it the Fano congruence of bitangents. We give a criterion for smoothness of the Fano congruence of bitangents and describe explicitly their degenerations in a general Lefschetz pencil in the space of hypersurfaces in $\mathbb P^3$.
We study the toric degeneration of Weyl group translated Schubert divisors of a partial flag variety of Lie type A via Gelfand-Cetlin polytopes. We propose a conjecture that Schubert varieties of appropriate dimensions intersect transversally up to translation by Weyl group elements, and verify it in various cases, including complex Grassmannian Gr(2, n) and complete flag variety Fl_4.
We use cluster structures and mirror symmetry to explicitly describe a natural class of Newton-Okounkov bodies for Grassmannians. We consider the Grassmannian $X=Gr_{n-k}(\mathbb C^n)$, as well as the mirror dual Landau-Ginzburg model $(\check{X}^\circ, W_q:\check{X}^\circ \to \mathbb C)$, where $\check{X}^\circ$ is the complement of a particular anti-canonical divisor in a Langlands dual Grassmannian $\check{X} = Gr_k((\mathbb C^n)^*)$, and the superpotential W_q has a simple expression in terms of Plücker coordinates. Grassmannians simultaneously have the structure of an $\mathcal{A}$-cluste…
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 $\hat{P}(2,4)$.
Kazhdan-Lusztig ideals, a family of generalized determinantal ideals investigated in [Woo-Yong '08], provide an explicit choice of coordinates and equations encoding a neighbourhood of a torus-fixed point of a Schubert variety on a type A flag variety. Our main result is a Grobner basis for these ideals. This provides a single geometric setting to transparently explain the naturality of pipe dreams on the Rothe diagram of a permutation, and their appearance in: * combinatorial formulas [Fomin-Kirillov '94] for Schubert and Grothendieck polynomials of [Lascoux-Schutzenberger '82]; * the equivar…
