Horospherical Schubert varieties are determined. It is shown that the stabilizer of an arbitrary point in a Schubert variety is a strongly solvable algebraic group. The connectedness of this stabilizer subgroup is discussed. Moreover, a new family of spherical varieties, called doubly spherical varieties, is introduced. It is shown that every nearly toric Schubert variety is doubly spherical.
After proving that every Schubert variety in the full flag variety of a complex reductive group $G$ is a general Hessenberg variety, we show that not all such Schubert varieties are adjoint Hessenberg varieties. In fact, in types A and C, we provide pattern avoidance criteria implying that the proportion of Schubert varieties that are adjoint Hessenberg varieties approaches zero as the rank of $G$ increases. We show also that in type A, some Schubert varieties are not isomorphic to any adjoint Hessenberg variety.
We express a Schubert expansion of the Chern-Mather class for Schubert varieties in the even orthogonal Grassmannian via integrals involving Pfaffians and pushforward of the small resolutions in the sense of Intersection Cohomology (IH) constructed by Sankaran and Vanchinathan, instead of the Nash blowup. The equivariant localization is employed to show the way of computing the integral. As a byproduct, we present the computations. For analogy and the completion of the method in ordinary Grassmannians, we also suggest Kazhdan-Lusztig classes associated to Schubert varieties in the Lagrangian a…
We introduce the notion of a cominuscule point in a Schubert variety in a generalized flag variety for a semisimple group. We derive formulas expressing the Hilbert series and multiplicity of a Schubert variety at a cominuscule point in terms of the restrictions of classes in torus-equivariant K-theory and cohomology to that point, generalizing previously known formulas for flag varieties of cominuscule type. Thus, we can calculate Hilbert series and multiplicities in cases where these were previously unknown. The formulas for Schubert varieties are special cases of more general formulas valid…
We study the combinatorics of pseudoline arrangements and their relation to the geometry of flag and Schubert varieties. We associate to each pseudoline arrangement two polyhedral cones, defined in a dual manner. We prove that one of them is the weighted string cone by Littelmann and Berenstein-Zelevinsky. For the other we show how it arises in the framework of cluster varieties and mirror symmetry by Gross-Hacking-Keel-Kontsevich: for the flag variety the cone is the tropicalization of their superpotential while for Schubert varieties a restriction of the superpotential is necessary. We prove…
Tangent spaces to Schubert varieties of type A were characterized by Lakshmibai and Seshadri. This result was extended to the other classical types by Lakshmibai. We give a uniform characterization of tangent spaces to Schubert varieties in cominuscule G/P. Our results extend beyond cominuscule G/P; they describe the tangent space to any Schubert variety in G/B at a point xB, where x is a cominuscule Weyl group element in the sense of Peterson. Our results also give partial information about the tangent space to any Schubert variety at any point. Our method is to describe the tangent spaces of…
Let $G/P$ be a complex cominuscule flag manifold. We prove a type independent formula for the torus equivariant Mather class of a Schubert variety in $G/P$, and for a Schubert variety pulled back via the natural projection $G/Q \to G/P$. We apply this to find formulae for the local Euler obstructions of Schubert varieties, and for the torus equivariant localizations of the conormal spaces of these Schubert varieties. We conjecture positivity properties for the local Euler obstructions and for the Schubert expansion of Mather classes. We check the conjectures in many cases, by utilizing results…
We introduce rectangular elements in the symmetric group. In the framework of PBW degenerations, we show that in type A the degenerate Schubert variety associated to a rectangular element is indeed a Schubert variety in a partial flag variety of the same type with larger rank. Moreover, the degenerate Demazure module associated to a rectangular element is isomorphic to the Demazure module for this particular Schubert variety of larger rank. This generalizes previous results by Cerulli Irelli, Lanini and Littelmann for the PBW degenerate flag variety.
Let $L$ be a Levi subgroup of $GL_N$ which acts by left multiplication on a Schubert variety $X(w)$ in the Grassmannian $G_{d,N}$. We say that $X(w)$ is a spherical Schubert variety if $X(w)$ is a spherical variety for the action of $L$. In earlier work we provide a combinatorial description of the decomposition of the homogeneous coordinate ring of $X(w)$ into irreducible $L$-modules for the induced action of $L$. In this work we classify those decompositions into irreducible $L$-modules that are multiplicity-free. This is then applied towards giving a complete classification of the spherical…
Let $G=SO(8n+4,\mathbb{C})$ ($n\ge 1$). Let $B$ be a Borel subgroup of $G$ containing a maximal torus $T$ of $G.$ Let $P (\supset B)$ denote the maximal parabolic subgroup of $G$ corresponding to the simple root $α_{4n+2}$. In this article, we prove projective normality of the GIT quotients of certain Schubert varieties in the orthogonal Grassmannian $G/P$ with respect to the descent of a suitable $T$-linearized very ample line bundle.
We study certain faces of the normal polytope introduced by Feigin, Littelmann and the author whose lattice points parametrize a monomial basis of the PBW-degenerated of simple modules for $\mathfrak{sl}_{n+1}$. We show that lattice points in these faces parametrize monomial bases of PBW-degenerated Demazure modules associated to Weyl group elements satisfying a certain closure property, for example Kempf elements. These faces are again normal polytopes and their Minkowski sum is compatible with tensor products, which implies that we obtain flat degenerations of the corresponding Schubert vari…
We consider the action of the Levi subgroup of a parabolic subgroup that stabilizes a Schubert variety. We show that a smooth Schubert variety is a homogeneous space for a parabolic subgroup, or it has a smooth Schubert divisor. Further, we show that all smooth Schubert varieties in a (partial) flag variety of a rank two simple algebraic group are spherical.
Levi subgroup actions on Schubert varieties are studied. In the case of partial flag varieties, the horospherical actions are determined. This leads to a characterization of the toroidal and horospherical partial flag varieties with Picard number 1. In the more general case, we provide a set of necessary conditions for the action of a Levi subgroup on a Schubert variety to be toroidal. The singular locus of a (co)minuscule Schubert variety is shown to contain all the $L_{max}$-stable Schubert subvarieties, where $L_{max}$ is the standard Levi subgroup of the maximal parabolic which acts on the…
Schubert varieties in the full flag variety of Kac-Moody type are indexed by elements of the corresponding Weyl group. We give a practical criterion for when two such Schubert varieties (from potentially different flag varieties) are isomorphic, in terms of the Cartan matrix and reduced words for the indexing Weyl group elements. As a corollary, we show that two such Schubert varieties are isomorphic if and only if there is an isomorphism between their integral cohomology rings that preserves the Schubert basis.
A normal variety $X$ is called $H$-spherical for the action of the complex reductive group $H$ if it contains a dense orbit of some Borel subgroup of $H$. We resolve a conjecture of Hodges--Yong by showing that their spherical permutations are characterized by permutation pattern avoidance. Together with results of Gao--Hodges--Yong this implies that the sphericality of a Schubert variety $X_w$ with respect to the largest possible Levi subgroup is characterized by this same pattern avoidance condition.
We classify all Q-factorializations of (co)minuscule Schubert varieties by using their Mori dream space structure. As a corollary we obtain a description of all IH-small resolutions of (co)minuscule Schubert varieties generalizing results of Perrin. We improve his results by including algebraically closed fields of positive characteristic and cominuscule Schubert varieties. Moreover, the use of Q-factorializations and Mori dream spaces simplifies the arguments substantially.
We describe the effect of Feigin's flat degeneration of the type $\textrm{A}$ flag variety on its Schubert varieties. In particular, we study when they stay irreducible and in several cases we are able to encode reducibility of the degenerations in terms of symmetric group combinatorics. As a side result, we obtain an identification of some Schubert varieties with Richardson varieties in higher rank partial flag varieties.
We show that the smooth horizontal Schubert subvarieties of a rational homogeneous variety $G/P$ are homogeneously embedded cominuscule $G'/P'$, and are classified by subdiagrams of a Dynkin diagram. This generalizes the classification of smooth Schubert varieties in cominuscule $G/P$.
We enumerate the number of staircase diagrams over classically finite $E$-type Dynkin diagrams, extending the work of Richmond and Slofstra (Staircase Diagrams and Enumeration of smooth Schubert varieties) and completing the enumeration of staircase diagrams over finite type Dynkin diagrams. The staircase diagrams are in bijection to smooth and rationally smooth Schubert varieties over $E$-type thereby giving an enumeration of these varieties.
We consider the PBW filtrations over the integers of the irreducible highest weight modules in type A and C. We show that the associated graded modules can be realized as Demazure modules for group schemes of the same type and doubled rank. We deduce that the corresponding degenerate flag varieties are isomorphic to Schubert varieties in any characteristic.
We give a new proof for the fact that the number of torus fixed points for the degenerated flag variety is equal to the normalized median Genocchi number, using the identification with a certain Schubert variety. We further study the torus fixed points for the symplectic degenerated flag variety and develop a combinatorial model, symplectic Dellac configurations, so parametrize them. The number of these symplectic fixed points is conjectured to be the median Euler number.
We consider smooth complete intersection Calabi-Yau 3-folds in minuscule Schubert varieties, and study their mirror symmetry by degenerating the ambient Schubert varieties to Hibi toric varieties. We list all possible Calabi-Yau 3-folds of this type up to deformation equivalences, and find a new example of smooth Calabi-Yau 3-folds of Picard number one; a complete intersection in a locally factorial Schubert variety ${\boldsymbolΣ}$ of the Cayley plane ${\mathbb{OP}}^2$. We calculate topological invariants and BPS numbers of this Calabi-Yau 3-fold and conjecture that it has a non-trivial Fouri…
We relate the geometry of Schubert varieties in twisted affine Grassmannian and the nilpotent varieties in symmetric spaces. This extends some results of Achar-Henderson in the twisted setting. We also get some applications to the geometry of the order 2 nilpotent varieties in certain classical symmetric spaces.
The theory of Seshadri stratifications has been developed by the authors with the intention to build up a new geometric approach towards a standard monomial theory for embedded projective varieties with certain nice properties. In this article, we investigate the Seshadri stratification on a Schubert variety arising from its Schubert subvarieties. We show that the standard monomial theory developed in [32] is compatible with this new strategy.
We study spherical Schubert varieties in the affine Grassmannian. These Schubert varieties have a natural conjectural modular description due to Finkelberg-Mirković. This modular description is easily seen to be set-theoretically correct, but it is not obviously scheme-theoretically correct. We prove that this modular description is correct in many cases. We also link this modular description to the reducedness conjecture from Kamnitzer-Webster-Weekes-Yacobi for tranverse slices in the affine Grassmannian.
A theorem of Ryan and Wolper states that a type A Schubert variety is smooth if and only if it is an iterated fibre bundle of Grassmannians. We extend this theorem to arbitrary finite type, showing that a Schubert variety in a generalized flag variety is rationally smooth if and only if it is an iterated fibre bundle of rationally smooth Grassmannian Schubert varieties. The proof depends on deep combinatorial results of Billey-Postnikov on Weyl groups. We determine all smooth and rationally smooth Grassmannian Schubert varieties, and give a new proof of Peterson's theorem that all simply-laced…
A permutation is called covexillary if it avoids the pattern $3412$. We construct an open embedding of a covexillary matrix Schubert variety into a Grassmannian Schubert variety. As applications of this embedding, we show that the characteristic cycles of covexillary Schubert varieties are irreducible, and provide a new proof of Lascoux's model computing Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomials of vexillary permutations. Combining the above embedding with earlier work of the author on the conormal varieties of Grassmannian Schubert varieties, we develop an algebraic criterion identifying the conormal varie…
Let $G$ be a complex quasi-simple algebraic group and $G/P$ be a partial flag variety. The projections of Richardson varieties from the full flag variety form a stratification of $G/P$. We show that the closure partial order of projected Richardson varieties agrees with that of a subset of Schubert varieties in the affine flag variety of $G$. Furthermore, we compare the torus-equivariant cohomology and $K$-theory classes of these two stratifications by pushing or pulling these classes to the affine Grassmannian. Our work generalizes results of Knutson, Lam, and Speyer for the Grassmannian of t…
We show that every smooth Schubert variety of affine type $\tilde{A}$ is an iterated fibre bundle of Grassmannians, extending an analogous result by Ryan and Wolper for Schubert varieties of finite type $A$. As a consequence, we finish a conjecture of Billey-Crites that a Schubert variety in affine type $\tilde{A}$ is smooth if and only if the corresponding affine permutation avoids the patterns $4231$ and $3412$. Using this iterated fibre bundle structure, we compute the generating function for the number of smooth Schubert varieties of affine type $\tilde{A}$.
