Duality and deformations of stable Grothendieck polynomials

Abstract: Stable Grothendieck polynomials can be viewed as a K-theory analog of Schur polynomials. We extend stable Grothendieck polynomials to a two-parameter version, which we call canonical stable Grothendieck functions. These functions have the same structure constants (with scaling) as stable Grothendieck polynomials, and (composing with parameter switching) are self-dual under the standard involutive ring automorphism. We study various properties of these functions, including combinatorial formulas, Schur expansions, Jacobi-Trudi type identities, and associated Fomin-Greene operators.