P-flag spaces and incidence stratifications

Abstract: For any finite poset P we introduce a homogeneous space as a quotient of the general linear group with the incidence group of P. When P is a chain this quotient is a flag variety; for the trivial poset our construction gives a variety recently introduced in [20]. Moreover we provide decompositions for any set in a projective space, induced by the action of the incidence group of a suitable poset. In the classical cases of Grassmannians and flag varieties we recover, depending on the choice of the poset, the partition into Schubert cells and the matroid strata. Our general framework produces, for the homogeneous spaces corresponding to the trivial posets, a stratification by parking functions.