Peterson varieties and toric orbifolds associated to Cartan matrices

Abstract

The Peterson variety is a remarkable variety introduced by Dale Peterson to describe the quantum cohomology rings of all the partial flag varieties. The rational cohomology ring of the Peterson variety is known to be isomorphic to that of a particular toric orbifold which naturally arises from the given root system. In this paper, we show that it is not an accidental algebraic coincidence; we construct an explicit morphism from the Peterson variety to the toric orbifold which induces a ring isomorphism between their rational cohomology rings.