Involutions of the Symmetric Group and Congruence B-orbits of Anti-Symmetric Matrices

We present the poset of Borel congruence classes of anti-symmetric matrices ordered by containment of closures. We show that there exists a bijection between the set of these classes and the set of involutions of the symmetric group. We give two formulas for the rank function of this poset

Congruence B-Orbits and the Bruhat Poset of Involutions of the Symmetric Group

We study the poset of Borel congruence classes of symmetric matrices ordered by containment of closures. We give a combinatorial description of this poset and calculate its rank function. We discuss the relation between this poset and the Bruhat poset of involutions of the symmetric group

Monoid Embeddings of Symmetric Varieties

We determine when an antiinvolution on an adjoint semisimple linear algebraic group extends to an antiinvolution on a $J$-irreducible monoid. Using this information, we study a special class of compactifications of symmetric varieties. Extending the work of Springer on involutions, we describe the parametrizing sets of Borel orbits in these special embeddings

Bruhat Order on Partial Fixed Point Free Involutions

The order complex of inclusion poset $PF_n$ of Borel orbit closures in skew-symmetric matrices is investigated. It is shown that $PF_n$ is an EL-shellable poset, and furthermore, its order complex triangulates a ball. The rank-generating function of $PF_n$ is computed and the resulting polynomial is contrasted with the Hasse-Weil zeta function of the variety of skew-symmetric matrices over finite fields.Comment: Minor typos are fixe

Lexicographic Shellability of Partial Involutions

In this manuscript we study inclusion posets of Borel orbit closures on (symmetric) matrices. In particular, we show that the Bruhat poset of partial involutions is a lexicographiically shellable poset. Also, studying the embeddings of symmetric groups and involutions into rooks and partial involutions, respectively, we find new $EL$-labelings on permutations as well as on involutions

Lexicographic shellability of the Bruhat-Chevalley order on fixed-point-free involutions

The main purpose of this paper is to prove that the Bruhat-Chevalley ordering of the symmetric group when restricted to the fixed-point-free involutions forms an $EL$-shellable poset whose order complex triangulates a ball. Another purpose of this article is to prove that the Deodhar-Srinivasan poset is a proper, graded subposet of the Bruhat-Chevalley poset on fixed-point-free involutions.Comment: Accepted for publication in Israel Journal of Mathematic

Sects and lattice paths over the Lagrangian Grassmannian

We examine Borel subgroup orbits in the classical symmetric space of type CI, which are parametrized by skew symmetric (n, n)-clans. We describe bijections between such clans, certain weighted lattice paths, and pattern-avoiding signed involutions, and we give a cell decomposition of the symmetric space in terms of collections of clans called sects. The largest sect with a conjectural closure order is isomorphic (as a poset) to the Bruhat order on partial involutions

Representations of the fundamental group of an L-punctured sphere generated by products of Lagrangian involutions

In this paper, we characterize unitary representations of the fundamental group of a punctured sphere whose generators can be decomposed into products of two Lagrangian involutions. Our main result is that such representations are exactly the elements of the fixed-point set of an anti-symplectic involution defined on the moduli space of unitary representations of this fundamental group. Consequently, it is a Lagrangian submanifold of this representation space

Universal graph Schubert varieties

We consider the loci of invertible linear maps $f : \mathbb{C}^n \to {(\mathbb{C}^n)}^*$ together with pairs of flags $(E_\bullet, F_\bullet)$ in $\mathbb{C}^n$ such that the various restrictions $f : F_j \to E_i^*$ have specified ranks. Identifying an invertible linear map with its graph viewed as a point in a Grassmannian, we show that the closures of these loci have cohomology classes represented by the back-stable Schubert polynomials of Lam, Lee, and Shimozono. As a special case, we recover the result of Knutson, Lam, and Speyer that Stanley symmetric functions represent the classes of graph Schubert varieties. We consider similar loci where $f$ is restricted to be symmetric or skew-symmetric. Their classes are now given by back-stable versions of the polynomials introduced by Wyser and Yong to represent classes of orbit closures for the orthogonal and symplectic groups acting on the type A flag variety. Using degeneracy locus formulas of Kazarian and of Anderson and Fulton, we obtain new Pfaffian formulas for these polynomials in the vexillary case. We also give a geometric interpretation of the involution Stanley symmetric functions of Hamaker, Marberg, and the author: they represent classes of involution graph Schubert varieties in isotropic Grassmannians.Comment: 43 page

DIIIDIII clan combinatorics for the orthogonal Grassmannian

Borel subgroup orbits of the classical symmetric space $SO_{2n}/GL_n$ are parametrized by $DIII$ $(n,n)$-clans. We group the clans into "sects" corresponding to Schubert cells of the orthogonal Grassmannian, thus providing a cell decomposition for $SO_{2n}/GL_n$. We also compute a recurrence for the rank polynomial of the weak order poset on $DIII$ clans, and then describe explicit bijections between such clans, diagonally symmetric rook placements, certain pairs of minimally intersecting set partitions, and a class of weighted Delannoy paths. Clans of the largest sect are in bijection with fixed-point-free partial involutions.Comment: Second version with revisions (including title change) based on referee reports; 31 pages, 6 figures; comments are welcom