Total nonnegativity and induced sign characters of the Hecke algebra

Abstract: Let $\mathfrak S_{[i,j]}$ be the subgroup of the symmetric group $\mathfrak S_n$ generated by adjacent transpositions $(i,i+1), \dotsc, (j-1,j)$, assuming $1 \leq i < j \leq n$. We give a combinatorial rule for evaluating induced sign characters of the type-$A$ Hecke algebra $H_n(q)$ at all elements of the form $\sum_{w \in \mathfrak S_{[i,j]}} T_w$ and at all products of such elements. This includes evaluation at some elements $C'_w(q)$ of the Kazhdan-Lusztig basis.