Quantum cohomology of minuscule homogeneous spaces (Q941081)

The main theorem of this paper supplies a very uniform presentation of the quantum cohomology ring of (co)minuscule homogeneous spaces, ranging from the usual and lagrangian grassmannians, quadrics, spinor varieties up to exceptional hermitian spaces like the Freudenthal variety or the Cayley plane. The methods are based upon the combinatorics of certain quivers. Pieri's and Giambelli's type formulas for all these kind of varieties are also known but, as the the authors remark, the techniques used in this paper do not apply, yet, to deduce them in a uniform way, all at once. This paper has a sequel, concerned with \textsl{hidden symmetries}, especially for grassmannians [Int. Math. Res. Not. 2007, No. 22, Article ID rnm107 (2007; Zbl 1142.14033)]. In spite of dealing with highly non trivial mathematics, the paper is written in a quite friendly way: for instance, the section that follows the introduction explains the basic terminology regarding minuscule and cominuscule homogeneous spaces. To help the potential reader to know in advance what is this paper about, recall that any parabolic subgroup contains a Borel subgroup \(B\) which contains a maximal torus \(T\) of \(G\). The pair \((G,T)\) defines \textsl{weights} (which are characters of \(T\) satisfying certain non triviality conditions) and a \textsl{root system}. A fundamental weight \(\omega\) is said to be \textsl{minuscule} if and only if \(|<\omega, \alpha>|\leq 0\), for each positive root \(\alpha\), where \(<,>\) is the pairing induced by the natural duality between the characters and the co-characters of \(T\). Furthermore \(\omega\) is said to be \textsl{co-minuscule} if and only if \(<\omega, \alpha^\vee>=1\), where \(\alpha\) denotes the highest root. To each such weight a parabolic subgroup \(P_\omega\) of \(G\) can be associated, and the corresponding quotient \(G/P_\omega\) is said to be a (co)minuscule homogeneous space. One of the key remarks of the paper is based on the observation that the Gromow-Witten invariant of degree \(d\) of \(G/P\) can be seen as classical intersection numbers on certain auxiliary \(G\)-homogeneous varieties. This is well explained with details in the third section of the paper, suggestively entitled ``From classical to quantum invariants''. Section 4 is devoted to the quantum Chevalley formula (concerning the intersection of any Schubert cycle with a codimension \(1\) Schubert cycle) and higher Poincaré duality. In this section the problem, already studied by \textit{W. Fulton} and \textit{C. Woodward} for grassmannians [J. Algebr. Geom. 13, No. 4, 641--661 (2004; Zbl 1081.14076)], of the minimum power of the quantum parameter \(q\) occurring in the product of two Schubert classes, is also analyzed. The final section is devoted to the study of the quantum cohomology of two exceptional hermitian spaces, namely the Cayley plane and the Freudenthal variety.