Normal crystals (also known as Stembridge crystals) are commonly used to establish the Schur positivity of symmetric functions, as their characters are sums of Schur polynomials. In this paper, we develop a combinatorial framework for a novel family of objects called normal square root crystals, which are closely related to symmetric Grothendieck functions, the $K$-theoretic analogue of Schur functions. Among other applications, this tool leads to a new proof of Buch's combinatorial rule for the multiplication of symmetric Grothendieck functions. The definition of a normal square root crystal, originally formulated by the first two authors, largely mirrors that of normal crystals. Our main result is to show that the character of such a crystal is always a sum of symmetric Grothendieck polynomials. The proof relies on an unexpected connection between the raising operators for our crystals and the Hecke insertion algorithm developed by Buch, Kresch, Shimozono, Tamvakis, and Yong.
Subword complexes are simplicial complexes introduced by Knutson and Miller to illustrate the combinatorics of Schubert polynomials and determinantal ideals. They proved that any subword complex is homeomorphic to a ball or a sphere and asked about their geometric realizations. We show that a family of subword complexes can be realized geometrically via regular triangulations of root polytopes. This implies that a family of $β$-Grothendieck polynomials are special cases of reduced forms in the subdivision algebra of root polytopes. We can also write the volume and Ehrhart series of root polyto…
We study the back stable $K$-theory Schubert calculus of the infinite flag variety. We define back stable (double) Grothendieck polynomials and double $K$-Stanley functions and establish coproduct expansion formulae. Applying work of Weigandt, we extend our previous results on bumpless pipedreams from cohomology to $K$-theory. We study finiteness and positivity properties of the ring of back stable Grothendieck polynomials, and divided difference operators in $K$-homology.
In this paper we show that the pipe dream complex associated to the permutation 1n(n-1)...2 can be geometrically realized as a triangulation of the vertex figure of a root polytope. Leading up to this result we show that the Grothendieck polynomial specializes to the h-polynomial of the corresponding pipe dream complex, which in certain cases equals the h-polynomial of canonical triangulations of root (and flow) polytopes, which in turn equals a specialization of the reduced form of a monomial in the subdivision algebra of root (and flow) polytopes. Thus, we connect Grothendieck polynomials to…
Grothendieck polynomials are important objects in the study of the $K$-theory of flag varieties. Their many remarkable properties have been studied in the context of algebraic geometry and tableaux combinatorics. We explore a new tool, similar to generating sequences, which we call the iterated residue technique. We prove new formulas on the calculus of iterated residues and use them to prove straightening laws and multiplication formulas for stable Grothendieck polynomials. As a further application of our method, we give new proofs that the $K$-Pieri rule and the expansions of Grothendieck po…
We consider matrices with entries that are polynomials in $q$ arising from natural $q$-generalisations of two well-known formulas that count: forests on $n$ vertices with $k$ components; and trees on $n+1$ vertices where $k$ children of the root are smaller than the root. We give a combinatorial interpretation of the corresponding statistic on forests and trees and show, via the construction of various planar networks and the Lindström-Gessel-Viennot lemma, that these matrices are coefficientwise totally positive. We also exhibit generalisations of the entries of these matrices to polynomials …
The machinery of noncommutative Schur functions provides a general tool for obtaining Schur expansions for combinatorially defined symmetric functions. We extend this approach to a wider class of symmetric functions, explore its strengths and limitations, and obtain new results on Schur positivity. We introduce combinatorial gadgets called switchboards, an adaptation of the D graphs of S. Assaf, and show how symmetric functions associated to them (which include LLT, Macdonald, Stanley, and stable Grothendieck polynomials) fit into the noncommutative Schur functions approach. This extends earli…
In this paper, we introduce polytopes ${\mathcal B}_G$ arising from root systems $B_n$ and finite graphs $G$, and study their combinatorial and algebraic properties. In particular, it is shown that ${\mathcal B}_G$ is reflexive if and only if $G$ is bipartite. Moreover, in the case, ${\mathcal B}_G$ has a regular unimodular triangulation. This implies that the $h^*$-polynomial of ${\mathcal B}_G$ is palindromic and unimodal when $G$ is bipartite. Furthermore, we discuss stronger properties, namely the $γ$-positivity and the real-rootedness of the $h^*$-polynomials. In fact, if $G$ is bipartite…
We prove that the $K$-$k$-Schur functions are part of a family of inhomogenous symmetric functions whose top homogeneous components are Catalan functions, the Euler characteristics of certain vector bundles on the flag variety. Lam-Schilling-Shimozono identified the $K$-$k$-Schur functions as Schubert representatives for $K$-homology of the affine Grassmannian for SL$_{k+1}$. Our perspective reveals that the $K$-$k$-Schur functions satisfy a shift invariance property, and we deduce positivity of their branching coefficients from a positivity result of Baldwin and Kumar. We further show that a …
Symplectic $Q$-functions are a symplectic analogue of Schur $Q$-functions and defined as the $t=-1$ specialization of Hall--Littlewood functions associated with the root system of type $C$. In this paper we prove that symplectic $Q$-functions share many of the properties of Schur $Q$-functions, such as a tableau description and a Pieri-type rule. And we present some positivity conjectures, including the positivity conjecture of structure constants for symplectic $P$-functions. We conclude by giving a tableau description of factorial symplectic $Q$-functions.
In this article we make several contributions of independent interest. First, we introduce the notion of stressed hyperplane of a matroid, essentially a type of cyclic flat that permits to transition from a given matroid into another with more bases. Second, we prove that the framework provided by the stressed hyperplanes allows one to write very concise closed formulas for the Kazhdan--Lusztig, inverse Kazhdan--Lusztig and $Z$-polynomials of all paving matroids, a class which is conjectured to predominate among matroids. Third, noticing the palindromicity of the $Z$-polynomial, we address its…
In earlier work in collaboration with Pavel Galashin and Thomas McConville we introduced a version of chip-firing for root systems. Our investigation of root system chip-firing led us to define certain polynomials analogous to Ehrhart polynomials of lattice polytopes, which we termed the symmetric and truncated Ehrhart-like polynomials. We conjectured that these polynomials have nonnegative integer coefficients. Here we affirm "half" of this positivity conjecture by providing a positive, combinatorial formula for the coefficients of the symmetric Ehrhart-like polynomials. This formula depends …
