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Using the Jacobi-Trudi identity as a base, we establish parallels between the theory of totally positive integer sequences and Koszul algebras. We then focus on the case of quadric hypersurface rings and use this parallel to construct new analogues of Schur modules. We investigate some of their Lie-theoretic properties (and in more detail in a followup article) and use them to construct pure free resolutions for quadric hypersurface rings which are completely analogous to the construction given by Eisenbud, Fl{\o}ystad, and Weyman in the case of polynomial rings., Comment: 38 pages

This article deals with computing the cohomology of Schur functors applied to tautological bundles on super Grassmannians. We show that in a range of cases, the cohomology is a free module over the cohomology of the structure sheaf and that the space of generators is an irreducible representation of the general linear supergroup that can be constructed via explicit multilinear operations. Our techniques come from commutative algebra: we relate this cohomology calculation to Tor groups of certain algebraic varieties., Comment: 38 pages

We consider tautological bundles and their exterior and symmetric powers on the Quot scheme over the projective line. We prove and conjecture several statements regarding the vanishing of their higher cohomology, and we describe their spaces of global sections via tautological constructions. To this end, we make use of the embedding of the Quot scheme as an explicit local complete intersection in the product of two Grassmannians, studied by Str{\o}mme. This allows us to construct resolutions with vanishing cohomology for the tautological bundles and their exterior and symmetric powers., Comment: 23 pages

The Witt algebra W_n is the Lie algebra of all derivations of the n-variable polynomial ring V_n=C[x_1, ..., x_n] (or of algebraic vector fields on A^n). A representation of W_n is polynomial if it arises as a subquotient of a sum of tensor powers of V_n. Our main theorems assert that finitely generated polynomial representations of W_n are noetherian and have rational Hilbert series. A key intermediate result states polynomial representations of the infinite Witt algebra are equivalent to representations of Fin^op, where Fin is the category of finite sets. We also show that polynomial representations of W_n are equivalent to polynomial representations of the endomorphism monoid of A^n. These equivalences are a special case of an operadic version of Schur--Weyl duality, which we establish., Comment: 25 pages

Let $M$ be a finitely generated module over a free twisted commutative algebra $A$ that is finitely generated in degree one. We show that the projective dimension of $M({\bf C}^n)$ as an $A({\bf C}^n)$-module is eventually linear as a function of $n$. This confirms a conjecture of Le, Nagel, Nguyen, and R\"omer for a special class of modules., Comment: 7 pages

A representation of $\mathfrak{gl}(V)=V \otimes V^*$ is a linear map $\mu \colon \mathfrak{gl}(V) \otimes M \to M$ satisfying a certain identity. By currying, giving a linear map $\mu$ is equivalent to giving a linear map $a \colon V \otimes M \to V \otimes M$, and one can translate the condition for $\mu$ to be a representation to a condition on $a$. This alternate formulation does not use the dual of $V$, and makes sense for any object $V$ in a tensor category $\mathcal{C}$. We call such objects representations of the curried general linear algebra on $V$. The currying process can be carried out for many algebras built out of a vector space and its dual, and we examine several cases in detail. We show that many well-known combinatorial categories are equivalent to the curried forms of familiar Lie algebras in the tensor category of linear species; for example, the titular Brauer category "is" the curried form of the symplectic Lie algebra. This perspective puts these categories in a new light, has some technical applications, and suggests new directions to explore., Comment: 37 pages

Gessel gave a determinantal expression for certain sums of Schur functions which visually looks like the classical Jacobi-Trudi formula. We explain the commonality of these formulas using a construction of Zelevinsky involving BGG complexes and use this explanation to generalize this formula in a few different directions., Comment: 14 pages

The study of Chow varieties of decomposable forms lies at the confluence of algebraic geometry, commutative algebra, representation theory and combinatorics. There are many open questions about homological properties of Chow varieties and interesting classes of modules supported on them. The goal of this note is to survey some fundamental constructions and properties of these objects, and to propose some new directions of research. Our main focus will be on the study of certain maximal Cohen-Macaulay modules of covariants supported on Chow varieties, and on defining equations and syzygies. We also explain how to assemble Tor groups over Veronese subalgebras into modules over a Chow variety, leading to a result on the polynomial growth of these groups., Comment: 20 pages; Dedicated to Bernd Sturmfels on the occasion of his 60th birthday

We study the coherent cohomology of generalized flag supervarieties. Our main observation is that these groups are closely related to the free resolutions of (certain generalizations of) determinantal ideals. In the case of super Grassmannians, we completely compute the cohomology of the structure sheaf: it is composed of the singular cohomology of a Grassmannian and the syzygies of a determinantal variety. The majority of the work involves studying the geometry of an analog of the Grothendieck-Springer resolution associated to the super Grassmannian; this takes place in the world of ordinary (non-super) algebraic geometry. Our work gives a conceptual explanation of the result of Pragacz-Weyman that the syzygies of determinantal ideals admit an action of the general linear supergroup. In a subsequent paper, we will treat other flag supervarieties in detail., Comment: 33 pages

Mehta and van der Kallen put a Frobenius splitting on the type A cotangent bundle $T^* GL_n/B$, thereby defining a stratification by compatibly split subvarieties, and they determined a few of the elements of this stratification. We embed $T^* GL_n/B$ as a stratum in a larger stratified (and Frobenius split) space $GL_n/B \times Mat_n$ whose stratification we determine, thereby giving a full description of the one of Mehta-van der Kallen. The main technique is to endow $GL_n/B \times Mat_n$ with a Bruhat atlas, covering it with open sets that are stratified-isomorphic to Bruhat cells (in $GL_{2n}/B_{2n}$). Among the consequences are that each stratum closure is normal and Cohen-Macaulay., Comment: 10 pages

Hermite reciprocity refers to a series of natural isomorphisms involving compositions of symmetric, exterior, and divided powers of the standard $SL_2$-representation. We survey several equivalent constructions of these isomorphisms, as well as their recent applications to Green's Conjecture on syzygies of canonical curves. The most geometric approach to Hermite reciprocity is based on an idea of Voisin to realize certain multilinear constructions cohomologically by working on a Hilbert scheme of points. We explain how in the case of ${\bf P}^1$ this can be reformulated in terms of cohomological properties of Schwarzenberger bundles. We then proceed to study these bundles from several perspectives: We show that their exterior powers have supernatural cohomology, arising as special cases of a construction of Eisenbud and Schreyer. We recover basic properties of secant varieties $\Sigma$ of rational normal curves (normality, Cohen-Macaulayness, rational singularities) by considering their desingularizations via Schwarzenberger bundles, and applying the Kempf-Weyman geometric technique. We show that Hermite reciprocity is equivalent to the self-duality of the unique rank one Ulrich module on the affine cone $\widehat{\Sigma}$ of some secant variety, and we explain how for a Schwarzenberger bundle of rank $k$ and degree $d\ge k$, Hermite reciprocity can be viewed as the unique (up to scaling) non-zero section of $(Sym^k\mathcal{E})(-d+k-1)$., Comment: 26 pages

The space of $n \times m$ complex matrices can be regarded as an algebraic variety on which the group ${\bf GL}_n \times {\bf GL}_m$ acts. There is a rich interaction between geometry and representation theory in this example. In an important paper, de Concini, Eisenbud, and Procesi classified the equivariant ideals in the coordinate ring. More recently, we proved a noetherian result for families of equivariant modules as $n$ and $m$ vary. In this paper, we establish analogs of these results for the space of $(n|n) \times (m|m)$ isomeric matrices with respect to the action of ${\bf Q}_n \times {\bf Q}_m$, where ${\bf Q}_n$ is the automorphism group of the isomeric structure (commonly known as the "queer supergroup"). Our work is motivated by connections to the Brauer category and the theory of twisted commutative algebras., Comment: 27 pages

We develop the idea of a supersymmetric monoidal supercategory, following ideas of Kapranov. Roughly, this is a monoidal category in which the objects and morphisms are ${\bf Z}/2$-graded, equipped with isomorphisms $X \otimes Y \to Y \otimes X$ of parity $\vert X \vert \vert Y \vert$ on homogeneous objects. There are two fundamental examples: the groupoid of spin-sets, and the category of queer vector spaces equipped with the half tensor product; other important examples can be derived from these (such as the category of linear spin species). There are also two general constructions. The first is the exterior algebra of a supercategory (due to Ganter--Kapranov). The second is a construction we introduce called Clifford eversion. This defines an equivalence between a certain 2-category of supersymmetric monoidal supercategories and a corresponding 2-category of symmetric monoidal supercategories. We use our theory to better understand some aspects of the queer superalgebra, such as certain factors of $\sqrt{2}$ in the theory of Q-symmetric functions and Schur--Sergeev duality., Comment: 59 pages

This is the first in a series of papers in which we study representations of the Brauer category and its allies. We define a general notion of triangular category that abstracts key properties of the triangular decomposition of a semisimple complex Lie algebra, and develop a highest weight theory for them. We show that the Brauer category, the partition category, and a number of related diagram categories admit this structure., Comment: 53 pages

For a finite ring $R$, not necessarily commutative, we prove that the category of $\text{VIC}(R)$-modules over a left Noetherian ring $\mathbf{k}$ is locally Noetherian, generalizing a theorem of the authors that dealt with commutative $R$. As an application, we prove a very general twisted homology stability for $\text{GL}_n(R)$ with $R$ a finite noncommutative ring., Comment: 23 pages, minor revision. To appear in Selecta Math

In this paper we describe the relationship between the finite free resolutions of perfect ideals in split format (for Dynkin formats) and certain intersections of opposite Schubert varieties with the big cell for homogeneous spaces $G/P$ where $P$ is a maximal parabolic subgroup., Comment: 12 pages; Dedicated to Laurent Gruson with thanks for his guidance and friendship

We study the category of Sp-equivariant modules over the infinite variable polynomial ring, where Sp denotes the infinite symplectic group. We establish a number of results about this category: for instance, we show that every finitely generated module M fits into an exact triangle $T \to M \to F \to$ where T is a finite length complex of torsion modules and F is a finite length complex of "free" modules; we determine the Grothendieck group; and we (partially) determine the structure of injective modules. We apply these results to show that the twisted commutative algebras ${\rm Sym}({\bf C}^{\infty} \oplus \bigwedge^2{\bf C}^{\infty})$ and ${\rm Sym}({\bf C}^{\infty} \oplus {\rm Sym}^2{\bf C}^{\infty})$ are noetherian, which are the strongest results to date of this kind. We also show that the free 2-step nilpotent twisted Lie algebra and Lie superalgebra are noetherian., Comment: 29 pages

Survey article on representation stability and examples in algebraic geometry and topology, written for the Notices of the AMS., Comment: 9 pages

We show that $\bigoplus_{n \ge 0} {\mathrm H}^t({\bf GL}_n({\bf F}_q), {\bf F}_\ell)$ canonically admits the structure of a module over the $q$-divided power algebra (assuming $q$ is invertible in ${\bf F}_{\ell}$), and that, as such, it is free and (for $q \neq 2$) generated in degrees $\le t$. As a corollary, we show that the cohomology of a finitely generated ${\bf VI}$-module in non-describing characteristic is eventually periodic in $n$. We apply this to obtain a new result on the cohomology of unipotent Specht modules., Comment: 19 pages

We extend the theory of Koszul modules to the bi-graded case, and prove a vanishing theorem that allows us to show that the Canonical Ribbon Conjecture of Bayer and Eisenbud holds over a field of characteristic zero or at least equal to the Clifford index. Our results confirm a conjecture of Eisenbud and Schreyer regarding the characteristics where the generic statement of Green's conjecture holds. They also recover and extend to positive characteristics results due to Aprodu and Voisin asserting that Green's Conjecture holds for generic curves of each gonality., Comment: 23 pages

Given r elements in an integral domain over an algebraically closed field such that any two are linearly independent, we show that there is an integer e between 1 and r! such the eth powers of these elements are linearly independent., Comment: 2 pages

We prove an analogue of Ananyan--Hochster's small subalgebra theorem in the context of sheaves on projective space, and deduce from this a version of Stillman's Conjecture for cohomology tables of sheaves. The main tools in the proof are Draisma's GL-noetherianity theorem and the BGG correspondence., Comment: 15 pages

We describe a Macaulay2 package for computing Schur complexes. This package expands on the ChainComplexOperations package by David Eisenbud., Comment: 9 pages, v2: revised Section 2.1. To appear in the Journal of Software for Algebra and Geometry. Updated package, available at: https://github.com/mperlm3/SchurComplexes

Hilbert famously showed that polynomials in n variables are not too complicated, in various senses. For example, the Hilbert Syzygy Theorem shows that the process of resolving a module by free modules terminates in finitely many (in fact, at most n) steps, while the Hilbert Basis Theorem shows that the process of finding generators for an ideal also terminates in finitely many steps. These results laid the foundations for the modern algebraic study of polynomials. Hilbert's results are not uniform in n: unsurprisingly, polynomials in n variables will exhibit greater complexity as n increases. However, an array of recent work has shown that in a certain regime---namely, that where the number of polynomials and their degrees are fixed---the complexity of polynomials (in various senses) remains bounded even as the number of variables goes to infinity. We refer to this as Stillman uniformity, since Stillman's Conjecture provided the motivating example. The purpose of this paper is to give an exposition of Stillman uniformity, including: the circle of ideas initiated by Ananyan and Hochster in their proof of Stillman's Conjecture, the followup results that clarified and expanded on those ideas, and the implications for understanding polynomials in many variables., Comment: This expository paper was written in conjunction with Craig Huneke's talk on Stillman's Conjecture at the 2018 JMM Current Events Bulletin

We previously showed that the inverse limit of standard-graded polynomial rings with perfect coefficient field is a polynomial ring, in an uncountable number of variables. In this paper, we show that the same result holds with arbitrary coefficient field. We also prove an analogous result for ultraproducts of polynomial rings., Comment: 20 pages

Combining recent results on noetherianity of twisted commutative algebras by Draisma and the resolution of Stillman's conjecture by Ananyan-Hochster, we prove a broad generalization of Stillman's conjecture. Our theorem yields an array of boundedness results in commutative algebra that only depend on the degrees of the generators of an ideal, and not the number of variables in the ambient polynomial ring., Comment: 16 pages

Hartshorne conjectured that a smooth, codimension c subvariety of n-dimensional projective space must be a complete intersection, whenever c is less than n/3. We prove this in the special case when n is much larger than the degree of the subvariety. Similar results were known in characteristic zero due to Hartshorne, Barth-Van de Ven, and others. Our proof is field independent and employs quite different methods from those previous results, as we connect Hartshorne's Conjecture with the circle of ideas initiated by Ananyan and Hochster in their proof of Stillman's Conjecture., Comment: 5 pages

The purpose of this paper is to prove that certain limits of polynomial rings are themselves polynomial rings, and show how this observation can be used to deduce some interesting results in commutative algebra. In particular, we give two new proofs of Stillman's conjecture. The first is similar to that of Ananyan-Hochster, though more streamlined; in particular, it establishes the existence of small subalgebras. The second proof is completely different, and relies on a recent noetherianity result of Draisma., Comment: 21 pages. v4: removes all hypotheses that we are working over an infinite ground field. v5: Fixes a gap in the proof of Lemma 5.11

We prove a version of the Hilbert basis theorem in the setting of equivariant algebraic geometry: given a group G acting on a finite type morphism of schemes X -> S, if S is topologically G-noetherian, then so is X., Comment: 7 pages

Let $R$ be a (not necessarily commutative) ring whose additive group is finitely generated and let $U_n(R) \subset GL_n(R)$ be the group of upper-triangular unipotent matrices over $R$. We study how the homology groups of $U_n(R)$ vary with $n$ from the point of view of representation stability. Our main theorem asserts that if for each $n$ we have representations $M_n$ of $U_n(R)$ over a ring $\mathbf{k}$ that are appropriately compatible and satisfy suitable finiteness hypotheses, then the rule $[n] \mapsto \widetilde{H}_i(U_n(R),M_n)$ defines a finitely generated OI-module. As a consequence, if $\mathbf{k}$ is a field then $dim \widetilde{H}_i(U_n(R),\mathbf{k})$ is eventually equal to a polynomial in $n$. We also prove similar results for the Iwahori subgroups of $GL_n(\mathcal{O})$ for number rings $\mathcal{O}$., Comment: 33 pages; minor update; to appear in Algebra & Number Theory

The theory of Schur functors provides a powerful and elegant approach to the representation theory of GL_n - at least to the so-called polynomial representations - especially to questions about how the theory varies with n. We develop parallel theories that apply to other classical groups and to non-polynomial representations of GL_n. These theories can also be viewed as linear analogs of the theory of FI-modules., Comment: 13 pages

We analyze the vanishing and non-vanishing behavior of the graded Betti numbers for Segre embeddings of products of projective spaces. We give lower bounds for when each of the rows of the Betti table becomes non-zero, and prove that our bounds are tight for Segre embeddings of products of P^1. This generalizes results of Rubei concerning the Green-Lazarsfeld property N_p for Segre embeddings. Our methods combine the Kempf-Weyman geometric technique for computing syzygies, the Ein-Erman-Lazarsfeld approach to proving non-vanishing of Betti numbers, and the theory of algebras with straightening laws.

The goal of this expository article, based on a lecture I gave at the 2016 ICRA, is to explain some recent applications of "categorical symmetries" in topology and algebraic geometry with an eye toward twisted commutative algebras as a unifying framework. The general idea is to find an action of a category on the object of interest, prove some niceness property, like finite generation, and then deduce consequences from the general properties of the category. The key in these cases is to prove that the representation theory of this category is locally noetherian, and we will discuss an outline for such proofs., Comment: 10 pages

Suppose that for each n >= 0 we have a representation $M_n$ of the symmetric group S_n. Such sequences arise in a wide variety of contexts, and often exhibit uniformity in some way. We prove a number of general results along these lines in this paper: our prototypical theorem states that if $M_n$ can be given a suitable module structure over a twisted commutative algebra then the sequence $M_n$ follows a predictable pattern. We phrase these results precisely in the language of Hilbert series (or Poincar\'e series, or formal characters) of modules over tca's., Comment: 28 pages

For a field $k$, we prove that the $i$th homology of the groups $GL_n(k)$, $SL_n(k)$, $Sp_{2n}(k)$, $SO_{n,n}(k)$, and $SO_{n,n+1}(k)$ with coefficients in their Steinberg representations vanish for $n \geq 2i+2$., Comment: 21 pages, 1 figure; major revision; to appear in Compositio Mathematica

Let A be the twisted commutative algebra freely generated by d indeterminates of degree 1. We show that the regularity of an A-module can be bounded from the first floor(d^2/4) + 2 terms of its minimal free resolution. This extends results of Church and Ellenberg from the d=1 case., Comment: 16 pages

We resolve a conjecture of Li and Ramos that relates the regularity of an FI-module to its local cohomology groups. This is an analogue of the familiar relationship between regularity and local cohomology in commutative algebra., Comment: 10 pages; v2: corrected statement of main result

Twisted commutative algebras (tca's) have played an important role in the nascent field of representation stability. Let A_d be the complex tca freely generated by d indeterminates of degree 1. In a previous paper, we determined the structure of the category of A_1-modules (which is equivalent to the category of FI-modules). In this paper, we establish analogous results for the category of A_d-modules, for any d. Modules over A_d are closely related to the structures used by the authors in previous works studying syzygies of Segre and Veronese embeddings, and we hope the results of this paper will eventually lead to improvements on those works. Our results also have implications in asymptotic commutative algebra., Comment: 51 pages; v2: many revisions

Previous work established a connection between the geometric invariant theory of the third exterior power of a 9-dimensional complex vector space and the moduli space of genus 2 curves with some additional data. We generalize this connection to arbitrary fields, and describe the arithmetic data needed to get a bijection between both sides of this story., Comment: 20 pages

A major open problem in the theory of twisted commutative algebras (tca's) is proving noetherianity of finitely generated tca's. For bounded tca's this is easy, in the unbounded case, noetherianity is only known for Sym(Sym^2(C^\infty)) and Sym(\wedge^2(C^\infty)). In this paper, we establish noetherianity for the skew-commutative versions of these two algebras, namely \wedge(Sym^2(C^\infty)) and \wedge(\wedge^2(C^\infty)). The result depends on work of Serganova on the representation theory of the infinite periplectic Lie superalgebra, and has found application in the work of Miller-Wilson on "secondary representation stability" in the cohomology of configuration spaces., Comment: 22 pages

We characterize the cone of GL-equivariant Betti tables of Cohen-Macaulay modules of codimension 1, up to rational multiple, over the coordinate ring of square matrices. This result serves as the base case for `Boij-S\"oderberg theory for Grassmannians', with the goal of characterizing the cones of GL_k-equivariant Betti tables of modules over the coordinate ring of k x n matrices, and, dually, cohomology tables of vector bundles on the Grassmannian Gr(k, C^n). The proof uses Hall's Theorem on perfect matchings in bipartite graphs to compute the extremal rays of the cone, and constructs the corresponding equivariant free resolutions by applying Weyman's geometric technique to certain graded pure complexes of Eisenbud-Fl{\o}ystad-Weyman., Comment: 17 pages, v2: Section 4 rewritten

We study the syzygies of secant ideals of Veronese subrings of a fixed commutative graded algebra over a field of characteristic 0. One corollary is that the degrees of the minimal generators of the ith syzygy module of the coordinate ring of the rth secant variety of any Veronese embedding of a projective scheme X can be bounded by a constant that only depends on i, r, and X, and not on the choice of the Veronese embedding., Comment: 11 pages; v2: expanded exposition

Boij-S\"oderberg theory focuses on the properties and duality relationship between two types of numerical invariants. One side involves the Betti table of a graded free resolution over the polynomial ring. The other side involves the cohomology table of a coherent sheaf on projective space. We discuss open questions and problems in Boij-S\"oderberg theory., Comment: 18 pages

Given a complex curve C of genus 2, there is a well-known relationship between the moduli space of rank 3 semistable bundles on C and a cubic hypersurface known as the Coble cubic. Some of the aspects of this is known to be related to the geometric invariant theory of the third exterior power of a 9-dimensional complex vector space. We extend this relationship to arbitrary fields and study some of the connections to invariant theory, which will be studied more in-depth in a followup paper., Comment: 19 pages

We develop a functorial theory of spinor and oscillator representations parallel to the theory of Schur functors for general linear groups. This continues our work on developing orthogonal and symplectic analogues of Schur functors. As such, there are a few main points in common. We define a category of representations of what might be thought of as the infinite rank pin and metaplectic groups, and give three models of this category in terms of: multilinear algebra, diagram categories, and twisted Lie algebras. We also define specialization functors to the finite rank groups and calculate the derived functors., Comment: 31 pages; v2: corrections and expanded some proofs