Toric degenerations of Grassmannians from matching fields

Abstract: We study the algebraic combinatorics of monomial degenerations of Pl\"ucker forms which is governed by matching fields in the sense of Sturmfels and Zelevinsky. We provide a necessary condition for a matching field to yield a Khovanskii basis of the Pl\"ucker algebra for $3$-planes in $n$-space. When the ideal associated to the matching field is quadratically generated this condition is both necessary and sufficient. Finally, we describe a family of matching fields, called $2$-block diagonal, whose ideals are quadratically generated. These matching fields produce a new family of toric degenerations of $\Gr(3, n)$.