Vertex Operators, Grassmannians, and Hilbert Schemes

We approximate the infinite Grassmannian by finite-dimensional cutoffs, and define a family of fermionic vertex operators as the limit of geometric correspondences on the equivariant cohomology groups, with respect to a one-dimensional torus action. We prove that in the localization basis, these are the well-known fermionic vertex operators on the infinite wedge representation. Furthermore, the boson-fermion correspondence, locality, and intertwining properties with the Virasoro algebra are the limits of relations on the finite-dimensional cutoff spaces, which are true for geometric reasons. We then show that these operators are also, almost by definition, the vertex operators defined by Okounkov and the author in Carlsson and Okounkov (http://arXiv.org/abs/0801.2565v2 [math.AG], 2009), on the equivariant cohomology groups of the Hilbert scheme of points on C-2, with respect to a special torus action.