Total Positivity: Combinatorics and Applications

NSF Award Search · 01002526DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT · $180,000 · view on nsf.gov ↗

Abstract

Total positivity studies mathematical spaces and their positive parts. For example, the positive part of a sphere is a triangle bounded by three great circles. More general spaces such as pyramids and polyhedra also arise as the positive parts of more complicated objects, and they turn out to have interesting boundary structures: vertices connected by edges, which are in turn contained in faces, etc. The boundaries of various totally positive spaces model diverse phenomena such as outcomes of a scattering experiment in particle physics or different ways to sort a list of numbers. In turn, these spaces are amenable to concrete study using techniques from combinatorics, which concerns discrete objects such as graphs and lists. The project will use the lens of total positivity to reveal the underlying combinatorial structure of spaces of polynomials and hyperplanes. It will also support K-12 outreach activities. Lorentzian polynomials were recently introduced to resolve several outstanding log-concavity conjectures. They also serve as geometric realization spaces of matroids, which are combinatorial abstractions of linear spaces. The project will determine the topology of various spaces of Lorentzian polynomials. A second direction concerns Schubert calculus, which studies intersection problems involving linear subspaces. Since the formulation of the Shapiro-Shapiro conjecture in the 1990's it has been known that total positivity can be employed to construct Schubert interse

Key facts

NSF award ID
2452061
Awardee
University of Notre Dame (IN)
SAM.gov UEI
FPU6XGFXMBE9
PI
Steven N Karp
Primary program
01002526DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
All programs
Estimated total
$180,000
Funds obligated
$180,000
Transaction type
Standard Grant
Period
06/15/2025 → 05/31/2028