The Prism tableau model for Schubert polynomials

The Schubert polynomials lift the Schur basis of symmetric polynomials into a basis for Z[x1,x2,...]. We suggest the "prism tableau model" for these polynomials. A novel aspect of this alternative to earlier results is that it directly invokes semistandard tableaux; it does so as part of a colored tableau amalgam. In the Grassmannian case, a prism tableau with colors ignored is a semistandard Young tableau. Our arguments are developed from the Groebner geometry of matrix Schubert varieties.Comment: 23 page

The geometry and combinatorics of Springer fibers

This survey paper describes Springer fibers, which are used in one of the earliest examples of a geometric representation. We will compare and contrast them with Schubert varieties, another family of subvarieties of the flag variety that play an important role in representation theory and combinatorics, but whose geometry is in many respects simpler. The end of the paper describes a way that Springer fibers and Schubert varieties are related, as well as open questions.Comment: 18 page

A geometric Littlewood-Richardson rule

We describe an explicit geometric Littlewood-Richardson rule, interpreted as deforming the intersection of two Schubert varieties so that they break into Schubert varieties. There are no restrictions on the base field, and all multiplicities arising are 1; this is important for applications. This rule should be seen as a generalization of Pieri's rule to arbitrary Schubert classes, by way of explicit homotopies. It has a straightforward bijection to other Littlewood-Richardson rules, such as tableaux, and Knutson and Tao's puzzles. This gives the first geometric proof and interpretation of the Littlewood-Richardson rule. It has a host of geometric consequences, described in the companion paper "Schubert induction". The rule also has an interpretation in K-theory, suggested by Buch, which gives an extension of puzzles to K-theory. The rule suggests a natural approach to the open question of finding a Littlewood-Richardson rule for the flag variety, leading to a conjecture, shown to be true up to dimension 5. Finally, the rule suggests approaches to similar open problems, such as Littlewood-Richardson rules for the symplectic Grassmannian and two-flag varieties.Comment: 46 pages, 43 figure

Gysin maps, duality and Schubert classes

We establish a Gysin formula for Schubert bundles and a strong version of the duality theorem in Schubert calculus on Grassmann bundles. We then combine them to compute the fundamental classes of Schubert bundles in Grassmann bundles, which yields a new proof of the Giambelli formula for vector bundles.Comment: Version 3: published versio

The integral cohomology ring of E_8/T

We give a complete description of the integral cohomology ring of the flag manifold E_8/T, where E_8 denotes the compact exceptional Lie group of rank 8 and T its maximal torus, by the method due to Borel and Toda. This completes the computation of the integral cohomology rings of the flag manifolds for all compact connected simple Lie groups.Comment: 5 pages, AMS-LaTeX, Minor errors corrected