We address a unification of the Schubert calculus problems solved by Buch [A Littlewood–Richardson rule for the $K$-theory of Grassmannians, Acta Math. 189 (2002), 37–78] and Knutson and Tao [Puzzles and (equivariant) cohomology of Grassmannians, Duke Math. J.119(2) (2003), 221–260]. That is, we prove a combinatorial rule for the structure coefficients in the torus-equivariant $K$-theory of Grassmannians with respect to the basis of Schubert structure sheaves. This rule is positive in the sense of Anderson et al. [Positivity and Kleiman transversality in equivariant $K$-theory of homogeneous spaces, J. Eur. Math. Soc.13 (2011), 57–84] and in a stronger form. Our work is based on the combinatorics of genomic tableaux and a generalization of Schützenberger’s [Combinatoire et représentation du groupe symétrique, in Actes Table Ronde CNRS, Univ. Louis-Pasteur Strasbourg, Strasbourg, 1976, Lecture Notes in Mathematics, 579 (Springer, Berlin, 1977), 59–113] jeu de taquin. Using our rule, we deduce the two other combinatorial rules for these coefficients. The first is a conjecture of Thomas and Yong [Equivariant Schubert calculus and jeu de taquin, Ann. Inst. Fourier (Grenoble) (2013), to appear]. The second (found in a sequel to this paper) is a puzzle rule, resolving a conjecture of Knutson and Vakil from 2005.

In 2005, Knutson–Vakil conjectured a puzzle rule for equivariant $K$-theory of Grassmannians. We resolve this conjecture. After giving a correction, we establish a modified rule by combinatorially connecting it to the authors’ recently proved tableau rule for the same Schubert calculus problem.

We obtain an algorithm computing the Chern–Schwartz–MacPherson (CSM) classes of Schubert cells in a generalized flag manifold $G/B$ . In analogy to how the ordinary divided difference operators act on Schubert classes, each CSM class of a Schubert class is obtained by applying certain Demazure–Lusztig-type operators to the CSM class of a cell of dimension one less. These operators define a representation of the Weyl group on the homology of $G/B$ . By functoriality, we deduce algorithmic expressions for CSM classes of Schubert cells in any flag manifold $G/P$ . We conjecture that the CSM classes of Schubert cells are an effective combination of (homology) Schubert classes, and prove that this is the case in several classes of examples. We also extend our results and conjecture to the torus equivariant setting.

Let $G$ be a compact connected Lie group with a maximal torus $T$. In the context of Schubert calculus we present the integral cohomology $H^{\ast }(G/T)$ by a minimal system of generators and relations.

In this paper we consider Grassmannians in arbitrary characteristic. Generalizing Kapranov’s well-known characteristic-zero results, we construct dual exceptional collections on them (which are, however, not strong) as well as a tilting bundle. We show that this tilting bundle has a quasi-hereditary endomorphism ring and we identify the standard, costandard, projective and simple modules of the latter.

We prove an analogue of Koszul duality for category $ \mathcal{O} $ of a reductive group $G$ in positive characteristic $\ell $ larger than $1$ plus the number of roots of $G$. However, there are no Koszul rings, and we do not prove an analogue of the Kazhdan–Lusztig conjectures in this context. The main technical result is the formality of the dg-algebra of extensions of parity sheaves on the flag variety if the characteristic of the coefficients is at least the number of roots of $G$ plus $2$.

While the intersection of the Grassmannian Bruhat decompositions for all coordinate flags is an intractable mess, it turns out that the intersection of only the cyclic shifts of one Bruhat decomposition has many of the good properties of the Bruhat and Richardson decompositions. This decomposition coincides with the projection of the Richardson stratification of the flag manifold, studied by Lusztig, Rietsch, Brown–Goodearl–Yakimov and the present authors. However, its cyclic-invariance is hidden in this description. Postnikov gave many cyclic-invariant ways to index the strata, and we give a new one, by a subset of the affine Weyl group we call bounded juggling patterns. We call the strata positroid varieties. Applying results from [A. Knutson, T. Lam and D. Speyer, Projections of Richardson varieties, J. Reine Angew. Math., to appear, arXiv:1008.3939 [math.AG]], we show that positroid varieties are normal, Cohen–Macaulay, have rational singularities, and are defined as schemes by the vanishing of Plücker coordinates. We prove that their associated cohomology classes are represented by affine Stanley functions. This latter fact lets us connect Postnikov’s and Buch–Kresch–Tamvakis’ approaches to quantum Schubert calculus.

Let $X$ be a minuscule Schubert variety. In this paper, we associate a quiver with $X$ and use the combinatorics of this quiver to describe all relative minimal models $\widehat{\pi}:{\widehat{X}}\to X$. We prove that all the morphisms $\widehat{\pi}$ are small and give a combinatorial criterion for $\widehat{X}$ to be smooth and thus a small resolution of $X$. We describe in this way all small resolutions of $X$. As another application of this description of relative minimal models, we obtain the following more intrinsic statement of the main result of Perrin, J. Algebra 294 (2005), 431–462. Let $\alpha\in A_1(X)$ be an effective 1-cycle class. Then the irreducible components of the scheme Hom$_{\alpha}(p^1,X)$ of morphisms from $\mathbb{P}^1$ to $X$ and of class $\alpha$ are indexed by the set: ${\mathfrak{ne}}(\alpha)=\{\beta\in A_1(\widehat{X}) \mid \beta$ is effective and $\widehat{\pi}_*\beta=\alpha\}$ which is independent of the choice of a relative minimal model $\widehat{X}$ of $X$.