The degree of a Schubert variety. (Q1417996)

Studying integration along Bott-Samelson cycles the author proves the following beautiful explicit formula for the degree of the Schubert variety \(X_w\) in the flag manifold \(G/T\) associated to an element \(w\) in the Weyl group: Let \(b_w\) be the Kähler sequence and \(A_w\) the Cartan matrix then, \[ \sum \frac{k!b_1^{r_1}\cdots b_k^{r_k}}{r_1!\cdots r_k!} T_{A_w}(x_1^{r_1}\cdots x_k^{r_k}), \quad k=I(w), \] where the sum is over all \(r_1+\cdots +r_k=k\) with \(r_i\geq 0\), and \(r_1+\cdots +r_i\leq i\), and where, for each \(k\times k\)-matrix \(A=(a_{ij})\), the homomorphism \(T_A:\mathbb Z[x_1,\dots, x_k]^{(k)}\to \mathbb Z\) on the homogeneous polynomials of degree \(k\) is defined recursively by: (1) For \(h\in \mathbb Z[x_1,\dots, x_{k-1}]^{(k)}\) we have \(T_A(h)=0\). (2) If \(k=1\) then \(T_A(x_1)=1\). (3) For \(h\in \mathbb Z[x_1,\dots, x_{k-1}]^{(k-r)}\) with \(r\geq 1\) we have \[ T_A(hx_k^r) =T{A'}(h(a_{1,k}x_1+\cdots +a_{k-1,k}x_{k-1})^{r-1}), \] where \(A'\) is the matrix obtained from \(A\) deleting the \(k\)'th column and the \(k\)'th row. The author also provides two generalizations of this result.