Crystal Chute Moves on Pipe Dreams

Abstract Schubert polynomials represent a basis for the cohomology of the complete flag variety and thus play a central role in geometry and combinatorics. In this context, Schubert polynomials are generating functions over various combinatorial objects, such as rc-graphs or reduced pipe dreams. By restricting Bergeron and Billey’s chute moves on rc-graphs, we define a Demazure crystal structure on the monomials of a Schubert polynomial. As a consequence, we provide a method for decomposing Schubert polynomials as sums of key polynomials, complementing related work of Assaf and Schilling via reduced factorizations with cutoff, as well as Lenart’s coplactic operators on biwords.