Schubert induction

Abstract

We describe a Schubert induction theorem, a tool for analyzing intersections on a Grassmannian over an arbitrary base ring. The key ingredient in the proof is the Geometric Littlewood-Richardson rule of [V2].

As applications, we show that all Schubert problems for all Grassmannians are enumerative over the real numbers, and sufficiently large finite fields. We prove a generic smoothness theorem as a substitute for the Kleiman-Bertini theorem in positive characteristic. We compute the monodromy groups of many Schubert problems, and give some surprising examples where the monodromy group is much smaller than the full symmetric group.

Authors

Ravi Vakil

Department of Mathematics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, United States