Symmetric polynomials and divided differences in formulas of intersection theory

The goal of the paper is two-fold. At first, we attempt to give a survey of some recent applications of symmetric polynomials and divided differences to intersection theory. We discuss: polynomials universally supported on degeneracy loci; some explicit formulas for the Chern and Segre classes of Schur bundles with applications to enumerative geometry; flag degeneracy loci; fundamental classes, diagonals and Gysin maps; intersection rings of G/P and formulas for isotropic degeneracy loci; numerically positive polynomials for ample vector bundles. Apart of surveyed results, the paper contains also some new results as well as some new proofs of earlier ones: how to compute the fundamental class of a subvariety from the class of the diagonal of the ambient space; how to compute the class of the relative diagonal using Gysin maps; a new formula for pushing forward Schur's Q- polynomials in Grassmannian bundles; a new formula for the total Chern class of a Schur bundle; another proof of Schubert's and Giambelli's enumeration of complete quadrics; an operator proof of the Jacobi-Trudi formula; a Schur complex proof of the Giambelli-Thom-Porteous formula.Comment: 58 pages; to appear in the volume "Parameter Spaces", Banach Center Publications vol 36 (1996) AMSTE

Quantum intersection rings

We examine a few problems of enumerative geometry and present their solutions in the framework of deformed (quantum) cohomology rings.Comment: 73 p, uuencoded, uses harvmac in b mode, 6 figures include

Integrable Discrete Geometry: the Quadrilateral Lattice, its Transformations and Reductions

We review recent results on Integrable Discrete Geometry. It turns out that most of the known (continuous and/or discrete) integrable systems are particular symmetries of the quadrilateral lattice, a multidimensional lattice characterized by the planarity of its elementary quadrilaterals. Therefore the linear property of planarity seems to be a basic geometric property underlying integrability. We present the geometric meaning of its tau-function, as the potential connecting its forward and backward data. We present the theory of transformations of the quadrilateral lattice, which is based on the discrete analogue of the theory of rectilinear congruences. In particular, we discuss the discrete analogues of the Laplace, Combescure, Levy, radial and fundamental transformations and their interrelations. We also show how the sequence of Laplace transformations of a quadrilateral surface is described by the discrete Toda system. We finally show that these classical transformations are strictly related to the basic operators associated with the quantum field theoretical formulation of the multicomponent Kadomtsev-Petviashvilii hierarchy. We review the properties of quadrilateral hyperplane lattices, which play an interesting role in the reduction theory, when the introduction of additional geometric structures allows to establish a connection between point and hyperplane lattices. We present and fully characterize some geometrically distinguished reductions of the quadrilateral lattice, like the symmetric, circular and Egorov lattices; we review also basic geometric results of the theory of quadrilateral lattices in quadrics, and the corresponding analogue of the Ribaucour reduction of the fundamental transformation.Comment: 27 pages, 9 figures, to appear in Proceedings from the Conference "Symmetries and Integrability of Difference Equations III", Sabaudia, 199

Initial values of ML-degree polynomials

We prove a conjecture about the initial values of ML-degree polynomials stated by Micha{\l}ek, Monin, and Wi\'sniewski.Comment: 5 pages, comments are welcome