The recursive nature of cominuscule Schubert calculus

The necessary and sufficient Horn inequalities which determine the non-vanishing Littlewood-Richardson coefficients in the cohomology of a Grassmannian are recursive in that they are naturally indexed by non-vanishing Littlewood-Richardson coefficients on smaller Grassmannians. We show how non-vanishing in the Schubert calculus for cominuscule flag varieties is similarly recursive. For these varieties, the non-vanishing of products of Schubert classes is controlled by the non-vanishing products on smaller cominuscule flag varieties. In particular, we show that the lists of Schubert classes whose product is non-zero naturally correspond to the integer points in the feasibility polytope, which is defined by inequalities coming from non-vanishing products of Schubert classes on smaller cominuscule flag varieties. While the Grassmannian is cominuscule, our necessary and sufficient inequalities are different than the classical Horn inequalities. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.