Coefficient lifting for skew divided differences and triple Schubert coefficients

Source abstract

Skew divided difference operators $\partial_{w/v}$, introduced by Macdonald, play an important role in the study of Schubert polynomials and their structure constants. For permutations $u,v,w\in S_n$, we show that the coefficient of each monomial \(\xx^α\) in \(\partial_{w/v}\SSch_u(\xx;\yy)\), where \(\SSch_u(\xx;\yy)\) is the double Schubert polynomial, is a single triple Schubert coefficient evaluated at \(\tb=0\), whose indices form an explicit lift of $(u,v,w)$ to \(S_{n+\absα}\). As an application, we show that every coefficient of \(\partial_{w/v}\SSch_u(\xx)\) is a single Schubert structure constant. This gives a new proof of Kirillov's conjecture that these coefficients are nonnegative.