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Crystals and total positivity on orientable surfaces

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Abstract

We develop a combinatorial model of networks on orientable surfaces, and study weight and homology generating functions of paths and cycles in these networks. Network transformations preserving these generating functions are investigated. We describe in terms of our model the crystal structure and R-matrix of the affine geometric crystal of products of symmetric and dual symmetric powers of type A. Local realizations of the R-matrix and crystal actions are used to construct a double affine geometric crystal on a torus, generalizing the commutation result of Kajiwara et al. (Lett Math Phys, 60(3):211–219, 2002) and an observation of Berenstein and Kazhdan (MSJ Mem, 17:1–9, 2007). We show that our model on a cylinder gives a decomposition and parametrization of the totally non-negative part of the rational unipotent loop group of GL n .

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA

    Thomas Lam

  2. Department of Mathematics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55414, USA

    Pavlo Pylyavskyy

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  1. Thomas Lam
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  2. Pavlo Pylyavskyy
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Correspondence to Thomas Lam.

Additional information

T. Lam was supported by NSF grant DMS-0652641 and DMS-0901111, and by a Sloan Fellowship.

P. Pylyavskyy was supported by NSF grant DMS-0757165.

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Lam, T., Pylyavskyy, P. Crystals and total positivity on orientable surfaces. Sel. Math. New Ser. 19, 173–235 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00029-012-0094-2

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