Paper detail

The positive Dressian equals the positive tropical Grassmannian

The Dressian and the tropical Grassmannian parameterize abstract and realizable tropical linear spaces; but in general, the Dressian is much larger than the tropical Grassmannian. There are natural positive notions of both of these spaces -- the positive Dressian, and the positive tropical Grassmannian (which we introduced roughly fifteen years ago) -- so it is natural to ask how these two positive spaces compare. In this paper we show that the positive Dressian equals the positive tropical Grassmannian. Using the connection between the positive Dressian and regular positroidal subdivisions of the hypersimplex, we use our result to give a new "tropical" proof of da Silva's 1987 conjecture (first proved in 2017 by Ardila-Rincon-Williams) that all positively oriented matroids are realizable. We also show that the finest regular positroidal subdivisions of the hypersimplex consist of series-parallel matroid polytopes, and achieve equality in Speyer's f-vector theorem. Finally we give an example of a positroidal subdivision of the hypersimplex which is not regular, and make a connection to the theory of tropical hyperplane arrangements.