Papers by Alexander Woo

Papers and slides are in PDF format. Slides were done with the Beamer LaTeX package. You can also look me up on the ArXiv.
  1. Schubert geometry and combinatorics (with Alexander Yong), Intended for Handbook of Combinatorial Algebraic Geometry: Subvarieties of the Flag Variety. Preprint at arXiv:2303.01436.

    This is a survey paper, starting from the level of graduate coursework, on the study of singularities of Schubert varieties using Kazhdan-Lusztig ideals.

  2. The shallow permutations are the unlinked permutations, submitted. Preprint at arXiv:2201.12949.

    Diaconis and Graham studied in the 1970s the total displacement of a permutation, which they showed to be at least the sum of length and reflection length. Cornwell and McNew introduced the idea of associating a link to a permutation diagram. Using a characterization of Hadjicostas and Monico, we show that the permutations whose total displacement is exactly the sum of length and reflection length are precisely the ones whose associated link is an unlink.

    Slides from a talk at Permutation Patterns 2022 in Valparaiso, IN, June 2022.

  3. Springer fibers and the Delta conjecture at t=0 (with Sean Griffin and Jake Levinson), submitted. Preprint at arXiv:2201.12949.

    Griffin constructed a family of rings that simultaneously generalize the cohomology rings of the Springer fibers and the Delta conjecture rings of Haglund, Rhoades, and Shimozono. We construct a family of varieties whose cohomology rings are these rings; these are compact in contrast to the construction of Pawlowski and Rhoades.

    Slides from a talk given at a (virtual) Session on Recent developments in Gröbner geometry, Canadian Mathematical Society Summer Meeting, June 2021.

  4. Gröbner bases, symmetric matrices, and type C Kazhdan-Lusztig varieties (with Laura Escobar, Alex Fink, and Jenna Rajchgot), submitted. Preprint at arXiv:2104.09589.

    We carry out the analogue of the Gröbner paper with Yong below for some of the opposite Schubert varieties in type C, namely those that give partial symmetric matrices.

  5. The Nash blow-up of a cominuscule Schubert variety (with Ed Richmond and William Slofstra), Journal of Algebra 559 (2020), 580-600.

    We show the Nash blow-up of a Schubert variety in the generalized flag variety of a cominuscule parabolic (for example a Grassmannian) is a Schubert variety in another generalized flag variety.

  6. A formula for the cohomology and K-class of a regular Hessenberg variety (with Erik Insko and Julianna Tymoczko), Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra, 224 (2020), Article 106230, 14 pp.

    We use combinatorial commutative algebra and the type A specific definition of Hessenberg varieties to give a formula for their cohomology class, one different from the one given by Anderson and Tymoczko.

    Slides from a talk given at the Special Session on Algebraic Combinatorics of Flag Varieties, AMS Central Sectional Meeting, Denton, TX, September 2017.

  7. Tropicalization, symmetric polynomials, and complexity (with Alexander Yong), Journal of Symbolic Computation, 99 (2020), 242-249.

    We show that the tropicalization of skew Schur functions have polynomial arithmetic circuit complexity.

  8. A Gröbner basis for the graph of the reciprocal plane. (with Alex Fink and David Speyer), Journal of Commutative Algebra, 12 (2020), 77-86.

    Orlik and Terao showed that the characteristic polynomial of a representable matroid can be recovered from the Hilbert series of the coordinate ring of the reciprocal plane. Proudfoot and Speyer had explained this result with a Gröbner basis for the reciprocal plane whose initial ideal gave the no broken circuit complex. On the other hand, Huh and Katz later showed that the cohomology class of the reciprocal graph is also given by the characteristic polynomial. We give a similar Gröbner explanation for this result.

  9. Hultman elements for the hyperoctahedral groups, Electronic Journal of Combinatorics 25 (2018), Paper 2.41, 25 pp.

    Hultman gave a general combinatorial characterization of elements of finite reflection groups where the number of chambers in the inversion arrangement equals the number of smaller (or equal) elements in Bruhat order, following a type A characterization conjectured by Postnikov and proved by Hultman, Linusson, Shareshian, and Sjöstrand. We use the Hultman characterization to give a pattern avoidance characterization and other characterizations analogous to the specific results in type A for type B.

    Slides from a talk at the Special Session on Algebraic Geometry and Combinatorics, AMS Eastern Sectional Meeting, New Brunswick, NJ, November 2015.

  10. Specht polytopes and Specht matroids (with John Wiltshire-Gordon and Magdalean Zajaczkowska), in Combinatorial Algebraic Geometry, Fields Institute Communications 80, Springer-Verlag, New York, 2017, p. 201-228.

    All the usual constructions of the irreducible representations of the symmetric group give a set of vectors that is preserved under the group action but do not form a basis. We study the convex polytope and the matroid define by this set and look at some of their relatively elementary properties.

  11. Governing singularities of symmetric orbit closures (with Ben Wyser and Alexander Yong), Algebra and Number Theory, 12 (2018), 173-225.

    We extend the notion of interval pattern avoidance from our analogous papers about Schubert varieties to the case of GL(p,C x GL(q,C) orbit closures on GL(p+q,C)/B, showing that it also characterizes the orbit closures satisfying any singularity property.

    Slides from a talk at the Session on Combinatorial Algebraic Geometry, Canadian Mathematical Society Winter Meeting, December 2016.

  12. Depth in classical Coxeter groups (with Eli Bagno, Riccardo Biagioli, and Mordechai Novik), Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics, 44 (2016), 645-676.

    We study the depth statistic defined by Petersen and Tenner in the case of the type B and D Coxeter groups and give explicit formulas for the depth of an element.

    Slides from a talk at the Special Session on Patterns in Permutations and Words at the AMS Eastern Sectional Meeting in Washington, DC, March 2015.

  13. Combinatorial results on (1,2,1,2)-avoiding GL(p,C x GL(q,C) orbit closures on GL(p+q,C)/B (with Benjamin Wyser), International Math Research Notices (2015), 13148-13193.

    We use facts about Richardson varieties (from the paper below) to characterize various singularity properties for these orbit closures.

    Slides from a talk at the University of Minnesota Combinatorics Seminar, September 2014

  14. Bruhat graphs and pattern avoidance (with Christopher Conklin), Journal of Combinatorics, 6 (2015), 91-102.

    We characterize the permutations whose Bruhat graphs can be drawn on the plane or on a torus in terms of the properties of the permutation. One of our characterizations is in terms of pattern avoidance

    This was an undergraduate summer research project for Chris in the summer of 2011.

  15. Apolarity and reflection groups (with Zach Teitler), Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics, 41 (2015), 365-383.

    The Waring rank of a polynomial is the least number of linear forms such that the polyomial is the sum of powers of the linear forms. We use classical facts about complex reflection groups and apolarity to determine the Waring rank of the Vandermonde determinant and some related products of linear forms.

    Slides from a talk at the SIAM Conference on Applied Algebraic Geometry, August 2013.

  16. Singularities of Richardson varieties (with Allen Knutson and Alexander Yong), Mathematical Research Letters, 20 (2013), 391-400.

    We show that all local questions about Richardson varieties can be reduced to corresponding questions about Schubert varieties.

  17. Which Schubert varieties are local complete intersections? (with Henning Ulfarsson), Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, 107 (2013), 1004-1052.

    We characterize by pattern avoidance the Schubert varieties (for GL_n) that are local complete intersections. These turn out to include the Schubert varieties defined by inclusions as an important special case. Our proof is partly through obtaining an explicit minimal set of generators for the ideal cutting out a neighborhood of the identity, and we derive some consequences thereof.

    Slides from a talk at the Algebraic Geometry Seminar at the University of British Columbia, February 2012.

  18. Mask formulas for cograssmannian Kazhdan--Lusztig polynomials (with Brant Jones), Annals of Combinatorics, 17 (2013), 151--203.

    Deodhar gave a formula for Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomials requiring an unknown (but known to exist) set of subwords of a reduced expression. We give two explicit constructions of such sets for cograssmannian permutations.

    Slides from a talk at the Special Session on Combinatorial Representation Theory, AMS Central Sectional Meeting, St. Paul, MN, April 2010.

  19. A Groebner basis for Kazhdan-Lusztig ideals (with Alexander Yong), American Journal of Mathematics, 134 (2012), 1089--1137.

    We show that certain obvious equations for local neighborhoods of Schubert varieties are a Groebner basis. We use this to explain a Grothendieck polynomial formula and give another multiplicity rule for Grassmannians.

    Slides from a talk at the Combinatorics Seminar at the University of Minnesota, October 2009.

  20. Presenting the cohomology of a Schubert variety (with Victor Reiner and Alexander Yong), Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, 363 (2011) 521--543.

    We give relatively short presentations for the cohomology rings of Schubert varieties.

    Slides from a talk at the Special Session on Algebra, Geometry, and Combinatorics at the AMS Central Sectional Meeting in Urbana, IL, March 2009.

  21. Permutations with Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomial P_{id,w}(q)=1+q^h (with an appendix by Sara Billey and Jonathan Weed), Electronic Journal of Combinatorics 16 (2009) no. 2, Research Paper 10, 32 pp.

    We prove a conjecture of Billey and Braden characterizing the permutations mentioned in the title using resolutions of singularities due to Cortez.

    Slides from a talk Formal Power Series and Algebraic Combinatorics, Hagenburg, Austria, July 2009.

  22. Interval Pattern Avoidance for Arbitrary Root Systems, Canadian Mathematical Bulletin, 53 (2010), 757--762.

    We extend the idea of interval pattern avoidance to arbitrary Weyl groups using the definition of pattern avoidance due to Billey and Braden, and Billey and Postnikov. We show that it characterizes Schubert varieties satisfying almost any singularity property for arbitrary semisimple Lie groups.

  23. Governing Singularities of Schubert Varieties (with Alexander Yong), Journal of Algebra (computational section), 320 (2008), 495--520.
    Companion Macaulay 2 code Schubsingular.v0.2.m2

    We define the combinatorial notion of interval pattern avoidance and show that it can be used to characterize Schubert varieties satisfying almost any singularity property. We analyze this notion for various singularity properties and measures and provide Macaulay 2 code for further exploration.

  24. When is a Schubert variety Gorenstein? (with Alexander Yong), Advances in Math, 207 (2006), 205--220.

    We determine which Schubert varieties are Gorenstein (a condition on singularities) in terms of a combinatorial characterization using generalized pattern avoidance conditions. We also give an explicit description as a line bundle of the canonical sheaf of a Gorenstein Schubert variety.

  25. Geometry of q and q,t-analogs in combinatorial enumeration (with Mark Haiman), in Geometric Combinatorics, IAS/Park City Mathematics Series 13, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 2007, p. 207-248.

    Notes from Mark Haiman's lectures at the Park City Mathematics Institute, July 2004, on the connection between classical q-analogs in combinatorics and q,t-analogs coming from the theory of Macdonald polynomials.

  26. Catalan numbers and Schubert polynomials for w=1(n+1)...2, preprint, 2004

    We show that the Schubert polynomial S_w specializes to the Catalan number C_n when w=1(n+1)...2. Several proofs of this result as well as a q-analog are given. An application to the singularities of Schubert varieties is given.

    The geometric results of this and the following paper have been subsumed by a paper of Li Li and Alexander Yong, Some degenerations of Kazhdan-Lusztig ideals and multiplicities of Schubert varieties. They disproved the conjecture that Catalan numbers give the maximum multiplicity. The combinatorial results are generalized and subsumed by a paper of Luis Serrano and Christian Stump, Maximal fillings of moon polyominoes, simplicial complexes, and Schubert polynomials

  27. Multiplicities of the most singular point on Schubert varieties on Gl(n)/B for n=5,6, preprint, 2004

    We calculate using Macaulay 2 the multiplicities of the most singular point on Schubert varieties on Gl(n)/B for n=5,6. The method of computation is described and tables of the results as well as code are included.

  28. Stick numbers and composition of knots and links (with Colin Adams, Bevin Brennan, and Deborah Greilsheimer), J. Knot Theory Ramifications, 6 (1997), 149--161.

    This contains the main results from an REU project in 1995. I must confess I have forgotten most of the contents.