Product and puzzle formulae for \(GL_n\) Belkale-Kumar coefficients (Q540067)

Summary: The Belkale-Kumar product on \(H^*(G/P)\) is a degeneration of the usual cup product on the cohomology ring of a generalized flag manifold. In the case \(G = GL_n\), it was used by \(N\). Ressayre to determine the regular faces of the Littlewood-Richardson cone. We show that for \(G/P\, a (d - 1)\)-step flag manifold, each Belkale-Kumar structure constant is a product of d Littlewood-Richardson numbers, for which there are many formulae 2 available, e.g. the puzzles of \textit{A. Knutson} and \textit{T. Tao} [Duke Math. J. 119, No. 2, 221--260 (2003; Zbl 1064.14063)]. This refines previously known factorizations into \(d - 1\) factors. We define a new family of puzzles to assemble these to give a direct combinatorial formula for Belkale-Kumar structure constants. These ``BK-puzzles'' are related to extremal honeycombs, as in [\textit{A. Knutson}, \textit{T. Tao} and \textit{C. Woodward}, J. Am. Math. Soc. 17, No. 1, 19--48 (2004; Zbl 1043.05111)]; using this relation we give another proof of Ressayre's result. Finally, we describe the regular faces of the Littlewood-Richardson cone on which the Littlewood-Richardson number is always 1; they correspond to nonzero Belkale-Kumar coefficients on partial flag manifolds where every subquotient has dimension 1 or 2.