Twists of Plücker coordinates as dimer partition functions (Q2634681)

As shown in a seminal paper in the field by the second author [Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 92, No. 2, 345--380 (2006; Zbl 1088.22009)], the homogeneous coordinate ring of the Grassmannian \(\mathrm{Gr}_{k,n}\) has the structure of a cluster algebra with particularly deep combinatorial properties. Among its clusters is a finite collection whose members are encoded by certain planar diagrams, known as alternating strand or Postnikov diagrams, and are such that all the cluster variables are Plücker coordinates. The present work is concerned with a certain rational map on the Grassmannian, called the twist, which is built from the permutation \(\sigma: \{ 1,\dotsc ,n\} \to \{ 1,\dotsc ,n\}\), \(\sigma(i)=i-1\) (modulo \(n\)). In any cluster algebra, one may express an arbitrary cluster variable as a Laurent polynomial in the cluster variables of one fixed cluster. For the Grassmannian, it is natural to ask that the fixed cluster comes from the aforementioned collection, since there the cluster variables have a particularly simple form, being Plücker coordinates. The main aim of the paper under review is to express the twist of a Plücker coordinate as a Laurent expression with respect to such a cluster: this is done combinatorially by deriving the required Laurent expression from the Postnikov diagram of the fixed cluster. In doing so, the authors relate the cluster structure on the Grassmannian to dimer partition functions on the weighted dual of the Postnikov diagram. We refer the reader to the detailed exposition of the paper at hand for precise formulae. This is part of a much larger story relating cluster algebras and dimers, particularly when the latter are considered in the context of quantum field theories (see for example [\textit{A. B. Goncharov} and \textit{R. Kenyon}, Ann. Sci. Éc. Norm. Supér. (4) 46, No. 5, 747--813 (2013; Zbl 1288.37025)]). The paper concludes with an analysis of the relationship of the twist map with maximal green sequences; the latter are particularly well-behaved sequences of mutations in a cluster algebra.