Leonardo Mihalcea

Quantum K-theory of the Grassmannian

Abstract: If X is a Grassmannian (or an arbitrary homogeneous space) the 3-point, genus 0, Gromov-Witten invariants count rational curves of degree d satisfying certain incidence conditions - if this number is expected to be finite. If the number is infinite, Givental and Lee defined the K-theoretic Gromov-Witten invariants, which compute the sheaf Euler characteristic of the space of rational curves in question, embedded in Kontsevich's moduli space of stable maps. The resulting quantum cohomology theory - the quantum K-theory algebra - encodes the associativity relations satisfied by the K-theoretic Gromov-Witten invariants. In joint work with Anders Buch, we shown that the (equivariant) K-theoretic Gromov-Witten invariants for Grassmannians are equal to structure constants of the ordinary (equivariant) K-theory of certain two-step flag manifolds. We therefore extended - and also reproved - the "quantum=classical" phenomenon earlier discovered by Buch-Kresch-Tamvakis in the case of the usual Gromov-Witten invariants. In this talk I plan to carefully define the quantum K-theory ring, and indicate the main idea behind the "quantum=classical" result.