Schubert cells and Whittaker functionals for $\text{GL}(n,\mathbb{R})$ part I: Combinatorics

Abstract

We give a formula for a birational map on the Schubert cell associated to each Weyl group element of $G=\text{GL}(n)$. The map simplifies the UDL decomposition of matrices, providing structural insight into the Schubert cell decomposition of the flag variety $G/B$, where $B$ is a Borel subgroup. An application of the formula includes a new proof of the existence of Whittaker functionals for principal series representations of $\text{GL}(n,\mathbb{R})$ via integration by parts. In this paper, we establish combinatorial properties of the birational map and prove auxiliary results.