Jeu de taquin and a monodromy problem for Wronskians of polynomials (Q973927)

The Wronskian associated to \(d\) linearly independent (complex) polynomials of degree less than \(n\) is a non-zero polynomial of degree at most \(N=d(n-d)\). Let \(\mathbb{C}_n[z]\) be the space of polynomials of degree at most \(n\). By a result of Eisenbud and Harris, the Wronskian can be viewed as a flat, finite morphism \(Wr\) from the Grassmannian \(X=Gr_d(\mathbb{C}_{n-1}[z])\) to the projective space \(\mathbb{P}(\mathbb{C}_N[z])\) of the same dimension. By a conjecture of B. Shapiro and M. Shapiro, proved by \textit{E. Mukhin, V. Tarasov} and \textit{A. Varchenko} in [Ann. Math. (2) 170, No. 2, 863--881 (2009; Zbl 1213.14101)] and [J. Am. Math. Soc. 22, No. 4, 909--940 (2009; Zbl 1205.17026)], the fibre over a polynomial with \(N\) distinct real roots is reduced and corresponds to a space generated by real polynomials. This paper studies the monodromy groupoid of the Wronski map \(Wr\) over the base points where the fibre is reduced. Specifically, the author studies a subgroupoid which describes the liftings of certain paths; such liftings are related to Schützenberger's jeu de taquin. It is a classical result that the fibres of \(Wr\) can be interpreted as intersections of Schubert varieties. Moreover, the degree of \(Wr\) is given by counting standard Young tableaux of appropriate shape. By a result of \textit{A. Eremenko} and \textit{A. Gabrielov} [Discrete Comput. Geom. 28, No. 3, 331--347 (2002; Zbl 1004.14011)], these tableaux index in a natural way the points in the fibre over any polynomial with distinct real roots. The author gives a generalized and more explicit reformulation of this correspondence, which allows him to describe the monodromy for certain paths in \(\mathbb{P}(\mathbb{C}_N[z])\) in terms of tableaux. To give such a description, the author modifies slightly the notion of a standard Young tableau, allowing entries in a field \(\mathbb{F}\) with a norm. This modification allow him to speak of paths of tableaux, which, when \(\mathbb{F}=\mathbb{R}\), can be viewed as an extension of jeu de taquin. Roughly speaking, this correspondence works as follows: the Plücker coordinates of a point \(x\in X\) are described in terms of a tableau whose entries are the roots of \(Wr(x;-z)\), where \(Wr(x;z)\) is a representative of \(Wr(x)\) in \(\mathbb{C}_N[z]\). Working over the field of Puiseux series \(\mathbb{C}\{\{u\}\}=\bigcup_{n\geq1} \mathbb{C}((u^{\frac{1}{n}}))\), instead of \(\mathbb{C}\), the tableau tells the leading terms of the Plücker coordinates; over the complex numbers, this becomes an approximation. The author's approach can be interpreted as an asymptotic analysis over real or complex numbers. Using this correspondence, the author identifies certain paths of tableaux with paths in \(X\). The most important example relates the monodromy problem to jeu de taquin theory. More precisely, for paths in \(\mathbb{P}(\mathbb{C}_N[z])\) of polynomials whose roots are real, the monodromy of \(Wr\) is described by a sequence of Schützenberger slides. Moreover, these identifications allows the author to give geometric interpretations of a number of combinatorial theorems involving jeu de taquin. The most important among these is the Littlewood-Richardson rule.