Characterizing positroid quotients of uniform matroids

We study two-step flag positroids <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>(</mml:mo> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>P</mml:mi> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> </mml:msub> <mml:mo>,</mml:mo> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>P</mml:mi> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msub> <mml:mo>)</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> , where <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>P</mml:mi> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:math> is a quotient of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>P</mml:mi> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:math> . We provide a complete characterization of all two-step flag positroids that contain a uniform matroid, extending and completing a partial result by Benedetti, Chávez, and Jiménez. Our characterization reveals that “non-local information” is necessary for characterizing flag positroids. To contrast general positroids with the special case of lattice path matroids, we show that the containment relations of Grassmann necklaces and conecklaces fully characterize flag lattice path matroids, but are insufficient for general flag positroids. Additionally, we prove that the decorated permutations of any elementary quotient pair are related by a cyclic shift, resolving a conjecture of Benedetti, Chávez and Jiménez.