Long range divided differences, clusters, and Graham-positivity

Abstract: We study torus-orbit closures in the type $A$ complete flag variety naturally associated to cones in the positive cluster fan, together with their left $S_n$-translates. The torus-equivariant degree maps can be computed via composites of long-range divided difference operations encoded by noncrossing alternating forests, and we give combinatorial algorithms to expand the torus-equivariant homology classes into Graham-positive combinations of Schubert cycles. As applications we obtain combinatorial Graham-positive Schubert cycle expansions for all torus-invariant curves (generalizing the AJS-Billey formula for torus-fixed points), generic torus-orbit closures, and Richardson varieties for Bruhat intervals $[w,wc']$ where $c'\le s_{n-1}s_{n-2}\cdots s_1$. Projecting to Grassmannians we also obtain Graham-positive Grassmannian Schubert cycle decompositions of torus-orbit closures associated to lattice path matroids on permuted ground sets.