$\LE$-diagrams and totally positive bases inside the nonnegative Grassmannian

Abstract

There is a cell decomposition of the nonnegative Grassmannian. For each cell, totally positive bases(TP-bases) is defined as the minimal set of Plücker variables such that all other nonzero Plücker variables in the cell can be expressed in those variables in a subtraction-free rational function. This is the generalization of the TP-bases defined for nonnegative part of $GL_k$ defined in \cite{FZ5}. For each cell, we have a $\LE$-diagram and a natural way to label the dots inside the diagram with Plücker variables. Those set of Plücker variables form a TP-bases of the cell. Using mutations coming from 3-term Plücker relation, we conjecture that they can be mutated to a special set of Plücker variable $§$. All other nonzero Plücker variables in the cell will be expressed as a subtraction-free Laurent polynomial in variables of $§$. We define TP-diagrams to express the transformation procedure in terms of moves on a diagram. We will prove the conjecture for certain class of cells called weakly-connected cells. Then we will study the connection with cluster algebras through lattice-path-matroid cells.