Daily Papers

We consider generalized homogeneous roofs, i.e. quotients of simply connected, semisimple Lie groups by a parabolic subgroup, which admit two projective bundle structures. Given a general hyperplane section on such a variety, we consider the zero loci of its pushforwards along the projective bundle structures and we discuss their properties at the level of Hodge structures. In the case of the flag variety F(1,2,n) with its projections to P^{n-1} and G(2, n), we construct a derived embedding of the relevant zero loci by methods based on the study of B-brane categories in the context of a gauged linear sigma model.

A regular semisimple Hessenberg variety Hess(S,h) is a smooth subvariety of the flag variety determined by a square matrix S with distinct eigenvalues and a Hessenberg function h. The cohomology ring H^*(Hess(S,h)) is independent of the choice of S and is not explicitly described except for a few cases. In this paper, we characterize the Hessenberg function h such that H^*(Hess(S,h)) is generated in degree two as a ring. It turns out that such h is what is called a (double) lollipop.

We develop the GKM theory for the torus-equivariant cohomology of the affine flag variety using the combinatorics of alcove walks. Dual to the usual GKM setup, which depicts the orbits of the small torus action on a graph, alcove walks take place in tessellations of Euclidean space. Walks in affine rank two occur on triangulations of the plane, providing a more direct connection to splines used for approximating surfaces. Alcove walks in GKM theory also need not be minimal length, and can instead be randomly generated, giving rise to more flexible implementation. This work reinterprets and recovers classical results in GKM theory on the affine flag variety, generalizing them to both non-minimal and folded alcove walks, all motivated by applications to splines.

Given a semisimple complex linear algebraic group G and a lower ideal I in positive roots of G, three objects arise: the ideal arrangement A_I, the regular nilpotent Hessenberg variety Hess(N,I), and the regular semisimple Hessenberg variety Hess(S,I). We show that a certain graded ring derived from the logarithmic derivation module of A_I is isomorphic to H^*(Hess(N,I)) and H^*(Hess(S,I))^W, the invariants in H^*(Hess(S,I)) under an action of the Weyl group W of G. This isomorphism is shown for general Lie type, and generalizes Borel's celebrated theorem showing that the coinvariant algebra of W is isomorphic to the cohomology ring of the flag variety G/B. This surprising connection between Hessenberg varieties and hyperplane arrangements enables us to produce a number of interesting consequences. For instance, the surjectivity of the restriction map H^*(G/B)to H^*(Hess(N,I)) announced by Dale Peterson and an affirmative answer to a conjecture of Sommers-Tymoczko are immediate consequences. We also give an explicit ring presentation of H^*(Hess(N,I)) in types B, C, and G. Such a presentation was already known in type A or when Hess(N,I) is the Peterson variety. Moreover, we find the volume polynomial of Hess(N,I) and see that the hard Lefschetz property and the Hodge-Riemann relations hold for Hess(N,I), despite the fact that it is a singular variety in general.

This paper presents a new, provably-convergent algorithm for computing the flag-mean and flag-median of a set of points on a flag manifold under the chordal metric. The flag manifold is a mathematical space consisting of flags, which are sequences of nested subspaces of a vector space that increase in dimension. The flag manifold is a superset of a wide range of known matrix spaces, including Stiefel and Grassmanians, making it a general object that is useful in a wide variety computer vision problems. To tackle the challenge of computing first order flag statistics, we first transform the problem into one that involves auxiliary variables constrained to the Stiefel manifold. The Stiefel manifold is a space of orthogonal frames, and leveraging the numerical stability and efficiency of Stiefel-manifold optimization enables us to compute the flag-mean effectively. Through a series of experiments, we show the competence of our method in Grassmann and rotation averaging, as well as principal component analysis. We release our source code under https://github.com/nmank/FlagAveraging.

Recent years have seen a surprising connection between the physics of scattering amplitudes and a class of mathematical objects--the positive Grassmannian, positive loop Grassmannians, tree and loop Amplituhedra--which have been loosely referred to as "positive geometries". The connection between the geometry and physics is provided by a unique differential form canonically determined by the property of having logarithmic singularities (only) on all the boundaries of the space, with residues on each boundary given by the canonical form on that boundary. In this paper we initiate an exploration of "positive geometries" and "canonical forms" as objects of study in their own right in a more general mathematical setting. We give a precise definition of positive geometries and canonical forms, introduce general methods for finding forms for more complicated positive geometries from simpler ones, and present numerous examples of positive geometries in projective spaces, Grassmannians, and toric, cluster and flag varieties. We also illustrate a number of strategies for computing canonical forms which yield interesting representations for the forms associated with wide classes of positive geometries, ranging from the simplest Amplituhedra to new expressions for the volume of arbitrary convex polytopes.