Combinatorial Hopf Algebras and K-Homology of Grassmanians

Abstract

Motivated by work of Buch on set-valued tableaux in relation to the K-theory of the Grassmannian, we study six combinatorial Hopf algebras. These Hopf algebras can be thought of as K-theoretic analogues of the by now classical “square” of Hopf algebras consisting of symmetric functions, quasisymmetric functions, noncommutative symmetric functions and the Malvenuto–Reutenauer Hopf algebra of permutations. In addition, we develop a theory of set-valued P-partitions and study three new families of symmetric functions which are weight generating functions of reverse plane partitions, weak set-valued tableaux and valued-set tableaux.