This is a revision and update of the part of the preprint math.CO/0405210 concerning field coefficients, line complexes, and the Hessian arrangement. The material from that paper concerning coefficients in arbitrary commutative rings and the deleted B_3 arrangement will appear separately.
In this paper we define the combinatorial analogous of a pencil, and show its relationship with the concept of admissibility. Such an object is usefull to study the isomorphisms between fundamental groups of the complements of line arrangement with the same combinatorial type. This definition generalizes the idea of net given by Yuzvinsky and others. The main theorem in this paper states that there is a correspondence between components of the resonance variety and combinatorial pencils.
We study the irreducibility of resonance varieties of graded rings over an exterior algebra E with particular attention to Orlik-Solomon algebras. We prove that for a stable monomial ideal in E the first resonance variety is irreducible. If J is an Orlik- Solomon ideal of an essential central hyperplane arrangement, then we show that its first resonance variety is irreducible if and only if the subideal of J generated by all degree 2 elements has a 2-linear resolution. As an application we characterize those hyperplane arrangements of rank less than or equal to 3 where J is componentwise linea…
We present some new results about the resonance varieties of matroids and hyperplane arrangements. Though these have been the objects of ongoing study, most work so far has focussed on cohomological degree 1. We show that certain phenomena become apparent only by considering all degrees at once.
We show that a line arrangement in the complex projective plane supports a nontrivial resonance variety if and only if it is the underlying arrangement of a "multinet," a multi-arrangement with a partition into three or more equinumerous classes which have equal multiplicities at each inter-class intersection point, and satisfy a connectivity condition. We also prove that this combinatorial structure is equivalent to the existence of a pencil of plane curves, also satisfying a connectivity condition, whose singular fibers include at least three products of lines, which comprise the arrangement…
Let R^1(A,R) be the degree-one resonance variety over a field R of a hyperplane arrangement A. We give a geometric description of R^1(A,R) in terms of projective line complexes. The projective image of R^1(A,R) is a union of ruled varieties, parametrized by neighborly partitions of subarrangements of A. The underlying line complexes are intersections of special Schubert varieties, easily described in terms of the corresponding partition. We generalize the definition and decomposition of R^1(A,R) to arbitrary commutative rings, and point out the anomalies that arise. In general the decompositio…
A variety of codimension $c$ in complex affine space is called positively hyperbolic if the imaginary part of any point in it does not lie in any positive linear subspace of dimension $c$. Positively hyperbolic hypersurfaces are defined by stable polynomials. We give a new characterization of positively hyperbolic varieties using sign variations, and show that they are equivalently defined by being hyperbolic with respect to the positive part of the Grassmannian, in the sense of Shamovich and Vinnikov. We prove that positively hyperbolic projective varieties have tropicalizations that are loca…
We initiate the study of positive-tropical generators as positive analogues of the concept of tropical bases. Applying this to the tropicalization of determinantal varieties, we develop criteria for characterizing their positive part. We focus on the study of low-rank matrices, in particular matrices of rank 2 and 3. Moreover, in the case square-matrices of corank 1, we fully classify the signed tropicalization of the determinantal variety, even beyond the positive part.
We show that the set of totally positive unipotent lower-triangular Toeplitz matrices in $GL_n$ form a real semi-algebraic cell of dimension $n-1$. Furthermore we prove a natural cell decomposition for its closure. The proof uses properties of the quantum cohomology rings of the partial flag varieties of $GL_n(\C)$ relying in particular on the positivity of the structure constants, which are enumerative Gromov--Witten invariants. We also give a characterization of total positivity for Toeplitz matrices in terms of the (quantum) Schubert classes. This work builds on some results of Dale Peterso…
In this article, we present a massively parallel framework for computing tropicalizations of algebraic varieties which can make use of finite symmetries. We compute the tropical Grassmannian TGr$_0(3,8)$, and show that it refines the $15$-dimensional skeleton of the Dressian Dr$(3,8)$ with the exception of $23$ special cones for which we construct explicit obstructions to the realizability of their tropical linear spaces. Moreover, we propose algorithms for identifying maximal-dimensional tropical cones which belong to the positive tropicalization. These algorithms exploit symmetries of the tr…
Associated to the cohomology ring A of the complement X(A) of a hyperplane arrangement A in complex m-space are the resonance varieties R^k(A). The most studied of these is R^1(A), which is the union of the tangent cones at the origin to the characteristic varieties of the fundamental group of X. R^1(A) may be described in terms of Fitting ideals, or as the locus where a certain Ext module is supported. Both these descriptions give obvious algorithms for computation. In this note, we show that interpreting R^1(A) as the locus of decomposable two-tensors in the Orlik-Solomon ideal leads to a de…
We give examples of complex hyperplane arrangements for which the top characteristic variety contains positive-dimensional irreducible components that do not pass through the origin of the character torus. These examples answer several questions of Libgober and Yuzvinsky. As an application, we exhibit a pair of arrangements for which the resonance varieties of the Orlik-Solomon algebra are (abstractly) isomorphic, yet whose characteristic varieties are not isomorphic. The difference comes from translated components, which are not detected by the tangent cone at the origin.
Peterson varieties are a special class of Hessenberg varieties that have been extensively studied e.g. by Peterson, Kostant, and Rietsch, in connection with the quantum cohomology of the flag variety. In this manuscript, we develop a generalized Schubert calculus, and in particular a positive Chevalley-Monk formula, for the ordinary and Borel-equivariant cohomology of the Peterson variety $Y$ in type $A_{n-1}$, with respect to a natural $S^1$-action arising from the standard action of the maximal torus on flag varieties. As far as we know, this is the first example of positive Schubert calculu…
By a theorem of A.Björner, for every interval $[u,v]$ in the Bruhat order of a Coxeter group $W$, there exists a stratified space whose strata are labeled by the elements of $[u,v]$, adjacency is described by the Bruhat order, and each closed stratum (resp., the boundary of each stratum) has the homology of a ball (resp., of a sphere). Answering a question posed by Björner, we suggest a natural geometric realization of these stratified spaces for a Weyl group $W$ of a semisimple Lie group $G$, and prove its validity in the case of the symmetric group. Our stratified spaces arise as links in th…
In [GHKK18], Gross-Hacking-Keel-Kontsevich discuss compactifications of cluster varieties from "positive subsets" in the real tropicalization of the mirror. To be more precise, let $\mathfrak{D}$ be the scattering diagram of a cluster variety $V$ (of either type -- $\mathcal{A}$ or $\mathcal{X}$), and let $S$ be a closed subset of $\left(V^\vee\right)^{\text{trop}}(\mathbb{R})$ -- the ambient space of $\mathfrak{D}$. The set $S$ is positive if the theta functions corresponding to the integral points of $S$ and its $\mathbb{N}$-dilations define an $\mathbb{N}$-graded subalgebra of $Γ(V, \mathca…
The totally nonnegative flag variety was introduced by Lusztig. It has enriched combinatorial, geometric, and Lie-theoretic structures. In this paper, we introduce a (new) $J$-total positivity on the full flag variety of an arbitrary Kac-Moody group, generalizing the (ordinary) total positivity. We show that the $J$-totally nonnegative flag variety has a cellular decomposition into totally positive $J$-Richardson varieties. Moreover, each totally positive $J$-Richardson variety admits a favorable decomposition, called a product structure. Combined with the generalized Poincare conjecture, we p…
We obtain a family of explicit "polyhedral" combinatorial expressions for multiplicities in the tensor product of two simple finite-dimensional modules over a complex semisimple Lie algebra. Here "polyhedral" means that the multiplicity in question is expressed as the number of lattice points in some convex polytope. Our answers use a new combinatorial concept of $\ii$-trails which resemble Littelmann's paths but seem to be more tractable. We also study combinatorial structure of Lusztig's canonical bases or, equivalently of Kashiwara's global bases. Although Lusztig's and Kashiwara's approach…