The topology of Birkhoff varieties (Q733677)

Let \({\mathcal F}=\widetilde{G}/P_{I}\) be an affine flag variety. Here \(G\) is a simply connected complex algebraic group with simple Lie algebra, \(\widetilde{G}=G({\mathbb C}[z,z^{-1}])\) is the corresponding affine group and \(P_{I}\) is the parabolic subgroup associated to a subset \(I\) of Coxeter generators \(\widetilde{S}\) of the affine Weyl group \(\widetilde{W}\). Then \({\mathcal F}\) has two stratifications: the Schubert or Bruhat cell decomposition: \[ {\mathcal F}= \bigsqcup_{\lambda\in\widetilde{W}/\widetilde{W}_{I}} { e_{\lambda} }, \] and the Birkhoff stratification: \[ {\mathcal F}=\bigsqcup_{\lambda\in \widetilde{W}/\widetilde{W}_{I}} {S_{\lambda}}. \] The Schubert cells \(e_{\lambda}\) are the orbits of the Iwahori subgroup \(\widetilde{B}\), while the Birkhoff strata \(S_{\lambda}\) are the orbits of the opposite Iwahori subgroup \(\widetilde{B}^{-1}\). The authors consider a finite union \({\mathcal Z}_{I}\) of Birkhoff subvarieties in the affine flag variety \(\mathcal F\). In their main theorem they first prove that \({\mathcal Z}_{I}\) is a strong deformation retract of \({\mathcal F}\). They further construct analogues of tubular neighborhoods for \({\mathcal Z}_{I}\) in \(\mathcal F\). In particular, they show that the inclusion \({\mathcal Z}_{I}\subset {\mathcal F}\) induces isomorphisms on ordinary and equivariant cohomology with any coefficients.