Scattering diagrams and scattering fans

Nathan Reading

Published 2017-12-19Version 1

Scattering diagrams arose in the context of mirror symmetry, but a special class of scattering diagrams (the cluster scattering diagrams) were recently developed to prove key structural results on cluster algebras. This paper studies scattering diagrams from a combinatorial and discrete-geometric point of view. We show that a consistent scattering diagram with minimal support cuts the ambient space into a complete fan. We give a simple derivation of the function attached to the limiting wall of a rank-2 cluster scattering diagram of affine type. In the skew-symmetric rank-2 affine case, this recovers a formula due to Reineke. In the same case, we point out that the generating function for signed Narayana numbers appears in a role analogous to a cluster variable. In acyclic finite type, cluster scattering fans are known to coincide with Cambrian fans because both coincide with the g-vector fan. Here, we construct scattering diagrams of acyclic finite type from Cambrian fans and sortable elements, with a simple direct proof. The paper includes two brief expositions of scattering diagrams, one largely following the conventions of Gross, Hacking, Keel, and Kontsevich, and the other (related by a global transpose) more compatible with the conventions of Fomin and Zelevinsky.