Restriction varieties and geometric branching rules (Q643443)

The main result of this article is Theorem 7.22, which shows that Algorithm 7.19 provides a positive, geometric rule for computing the cohomology class of a restriction variety in an orthogonal flag variety, as a positive integral combination of Schubert varieties. The sections \S 3 -- \S 5 provide detailed construction for the special case of orthogonal Grassmannians, while \S 7 describes the algorithm in general, emphasizing the differences. \S 2 gives a brief summary of various facts on orthogonal flag varieties. A number of interesting examples are computed in \S 6, including the moduli space of vector bundles on hyperelliptic curves and geometric rule for computing products of Schubert cycles. Further applications to the algorithms are given in \S 6 and \S 8. Restriction varieties are subvarieties of an orthogonal Grassmannian \(\mathrm{OG}(k,n)\), or more generally an orthogonal flag variety \(\mathrm{OF}(k_1, \ldots, k_h; n)\). A restriction variety \(V(L_{\bullet}, Q_{\bullet})\) is defined from an admissible sequence \((L_{\bullet}, Q_{\bullet})\) of linear subspaces \(L_{n_j}\) and subquadrics \(Q_{d_i}^{r_i}\) of \(Q\). The conditions that the sequence has to satisfy are contained in Definition 4.2 and 4.9. In particular, \(L_{n_j}\) is isotropic and the subscript denotes the dimension of the isotropic linear space corresponding to it (thus it is an \((n_j-1)\)-plane in \(\mathbb P^{n-1}\)). The subquadric \(Q_{d_i}^{r_i}\) is cut out by a \(d_i\)-dimensional linear section of \(Q\) and has corank \(r_i\). The sequence \((L_{\bullet}, Q_{\bullet})\) has \(k\)-terms and is of the form \[ L_{n_1} \subset L_{n_2} \subset \ldots \subset L_{n_s} \subset Q_{d_{k-s}}^{i_{k-s}} \subset \ldots \subset Q_{d_1}^{r_1} (\subset Q) \] Roughly speaking, the restriction variety \(V(L_{\bullet}, Q_{\bullet}) \subset \mathrm{OG}(k,n)\) parametrizes subspaces with appropriate intersection properties with \(L_{\bullet}\), \(Q_{\bullet}\) and \(\mathrm{Sing}(Q_{\bullet})\), the singular loci of \(Q_{\bullet}\). For Schubert varieties in \(\mathrm{OG}(k,n)\), which are restriction varieties (Lemma 4.18), \(r_i + d_i = n\) for all \(i \in [1, k-s]\), while in general, \(r_i + d_i \leqslant n\) and form a decreasing sequence. Furthermore, a restriction variety may be reducible and the components are labeled by markings \(m_{\bullet}\). The main geometric construction is Degeneration 5.7, in which a sequence \((L_{\bullet}, Q_{\bullet})\) is replaced by \((L_{\bullet}^a, Q_{\bullet}^a)\), where, for a certain index \(\kappa\), \(Q_{d_\kappa}^{r_\kappa}\) is degenerated to another subquadric \(Q_{d_\kappa}^{r_\kappa + 1}\) that lies in between \(Q_{d_{\kappa+1}}^{r_{\kappa+1}}\) and \(Q_{d_{\kappa-1}}^{r_{\kappa-1}}\). The moral is that the resulting sequence is closer to defining a Schubert variety. An extra algorithm is needed to make the resulting sequence admissible (Algorithm 5.10). Then Algorithm 5.9 describes the components of the central fiber of the geometric degeneration that can be used as the starting points of another iteration. After finite iterations, which give rise to a degeneration path, the result is a Schubert variety representing a Schubert class \(\sigma_\lambda^\mu\). Then (Theorem 5.12) the class of a restriction variety \(V\) is given by \[ [V] = \sum c_\lambda^\mu \sigma_\lambda^\mu \] where \(c_\lambda^\mu\) is the non-negative integer counting the number of degeneration paths starting from \(V\) and ending at a Schubert variety representing the class \(\sigma_\lambda^\mu\). The combinatorial object introduced to represent an admissible sequence \((L_{\bullet}, Q_{\bullet})\) is a quadric diagram (Definitions 3.2 and 3.4). It is a sequence of non-negative integers, with right brackets and braces, satisfying conditions depending on integers \(0 \leqslant s \leqslant k < n\). The conditions are set up so that the correspondence (Definition 4.4) between admissible sequences and quadric diagrams works out (Lemma 4.11). The algorithm of geometric degeneration is represented by shifting the brackets and braces, replacing some of the \(0\)'s by positive integers and similar operations. Thus one is able to follow the degeneration paths using quadric diagrams, and the counting can be done. For orthogonal flag varieties, to define restriction varieties, one needs to introduce coloring (Definition 7.1) of the brackets and braces of a quadric diagram. For \(\mathrm{OF}(k_1, \ldots, k_h; n)\), \(h\) colors are needed. Here a restriction variety \(V(L_{\bullet}, Q_{\bullet}, c_{\bullet})\) is defined from an admissible sequence of colored quadric diagram (Definitions 7.3 and 7.4). The same degeneration process and counting procedure give similar result representing the class of a restriction variety \(V\) as positive integral combination of Schubert classes.