Cambrian fans

Abstract

For a finite Coxeter group $W$ and a Coxeter element $c$ of $W,$ the $c$-Cambrian fan is a coarsening of the fan defined by the reflecting hyperplanes of $W$. Its maximal cones are naturally indexed by the $c$-sortable elements of $W$. The main result of this paper is that the known bijection ${\mathrm{cl}}_c$ between $c$-sortable elements and $c$-clusters induces a combinatorial isomorphism of fans. In particular, the $c$-Cambrian fan is combinatorially isomorphic to the normal fan of the generalized associahedron for $W$. The rays of the $c$-Cambrian fan are generated by certain vectors in the $W$-orbit of the fundamental weights, while the rays of the $c$-cluster fan are generated by certain roots. For particular (“bipartite”) choices of $c$, we show that the $c$-Cambrian fan is linearly isomorphic to the $c$-cluster fan. We characterize, in terms of the combinatorics of clusters, the partial order induced, via the map ${\mathrm{cl}}_c$, on $c$-clusters by the $c$-Cambrian lattice. We give a simple bijection from $c$-clusters to $c$-noncrossing partitions that respects the refined (Narayana) enumeration. We relate the Cambrian fan to well known objects in the theory of cluster algebras, providing a geometric context for $\mathbf{g}$-vectors and quasi-Cartan companions.