Permutation patterns and Stanley symmetric functions

Given a permutation w, Stanley defined a symmetric function F_w which encodes information about the reduced words of w, and showed that F_w is a single Schur function exactly when w avoids the pattern 2143. We generalize this statement, showing that the Schur expansion of F_w respects pattern containment in a certain sense, and that the number of Schur function terms is determined by pattern avoidance conditions on w. Along the way, we compute the cohomology of certain subvarieties of Grassmannians, resolving some cases of a conjecture of Liu. This is joint work with Sara Billey.