Brick manifolds and toric varieties of brick polytopes (Q281634)

Let \(G\) be a complex Lie group and let \(B\) be a Borel subgroup of \(G\). A Bott-Samelson variety is the twisted product of a number of copies of \(\mathbb{C} \mathbb{P}^1\)'s equipped with a map into the flag variety \(G/B\). The author studies a fiber of this map in the case where the map is not birational to the image. Using the moment map of a Bott-Samelson variety, she states the problem in terms of Knutson and Miller's ``subword complexes'' and shows that in some cases, the general fiber, called a ``brick manifold'', is a toric variety. A construction of certain brick polytopes of spherical subword complexes is presented in [\textit{V. Pilaud} and \textit{C. Stump}, Adv. Math. 276, 1--61 (2015; Zbl 1405.05196); \textit{V. Pilaud} and \textit{F. Santos}, European J. Combin. 33, No. 4, 632--662 (2012; Zbl 1239.52026)]. This construction is used in the paper under review for a precise description of the toric varieties of c-generalized associahedra in connection with Bott-Samelson varieties. The root independent subword complexes have interesting connections with Bott-Samelson varieties and symplectic geometry, which have been used by the author to describe the toric varieties of the associated brick polytopes. One of the main results of the paper is that the moment polytope of the brick manifold is the brick polytope. Also, the author gives a nice description of the toric variety of the associahedron.