Quantum Giambelli formulas for isotropic Grassmannians (Q1938419)

This paper places itself within the rich framework of the literature regarding quantum cohomology of homogeneous varieties produced by the authors themselves. This new piece of mathematics regards certain \textsl{Quantum Giambelli} formulas for isotropic Grassmannians. If \(V\) is a vector space equipped with a non degenerate bilinear form \(\eta\), one can consider the Grassmannian \(X:=IG(k,V)\) of isotropic subspaces of \(V\) of a fixed dimension \(k\), namely the variety of those points \([W]\in G(k,V)\) such that the restriction of \(\eta\) to \(W\) is trivial (i.e. \(\eta_{|W\times W}=0\)). If the bilinear form is skew-symmetric, the dimension of \(V\) is even and one is then concerned with symplectic vector spaces. As well known, the cohomology ring \(H^*(X,{\mathbb{Z}})\) is generated as a \({\mathbb{Z}}\)-algebra by certain special Schubert cycles and it is also a well known fact that such cycles generate the quantum cohomology of \(X\) as well. The latter is a deformation of the usual cohomology encoding the Gromov-Witten invariants which count, roughly speaking, numbers of maps of a given degree from the projective line to \(X\). The authors find and prove quantum Giambelli's formulas expressing an arbitrary Schubert class in the small quantum cohomology ring of \(X\) as a polynomial in the special Schubert classes alluded above. The two main theorems of the article (concerning Giambelli's formulas) are analogous to those proven for the quantum cohomology of the orthogonal and Lagrangian Grassmannians in [J. Algebr. Geom. 12, No. 4, 777--810 (2003; Zbl 1051.53070)] and [Compos. Math. 140, No. 2, 482--500 (2004; Zbl 1077.14083)], by \textit{A. Kresch} and \textit{H. Tamvakis}. The proof are however quite different, due to the fact that for non maximal isotropic Grassmannians, the explicit recursion used in the quoted references is no longer available. The latter is replaced, however, by another kind of recursion, neatly steted and proved in Proposition 3. The reviewed paper is for all people interested in the combinatorial aspects of cohomology theories (quantum, equivariant, quantum-equivariant) of homogeneous varieties.