Beyond the Sottile–Sturmfels Degeneration of a Semi-Infinite Grassmannian

We study toric degenerations of semi-infinite Grassmannians (a.k.a. quantum Grassmannians). While the toric degenerations of the classical Grassmannians are well studied, the only known example in the semi-infinite case is due to Sottile and Sturmfels. We start by providing a new interpretation of the Sottile–Sturmfels construction by finding a poset such that their degeneration is the toric variety of the order polytope of the poset. We then use our poset to construct and study a new toric degeneration in the semi-infinite case. Our construction is based on the notion of poset polytopes introduced by Fang–Fourier–Litza–Pegel. As an application, we introduce semi-infinite PBW-semistandard tableaux, giving a basis in the homogeneous coordinate ring of a semi-infinite Grassmannian.