TITLE: Coordinates on Flag Manifolds
QUESTION [6 upvotes]: Suppose you want to work with complete flags $\mathbb{F}_3$ on $\mathbb{C}^3$.  Given a flag
$$ \{0\}\leq V_1\leq V_2 \leq \mathbb{C}^3$$
you can think of $V_1$ as the span of a vector $\vec{u}$, and then you can choose a vector
$\vec{v}$ that is Hermitian orthogonal to $\vec{u}$ so that $V_2=<\vec{u},\vec{v}>$.  Finally you
can choose $\vec{w}$ so that it is Hermitian orthogonal to $<\vec{u},\vec{v}>$.  This gives an embedding
$$\mathbb{F}_3\rightarrow \mathbb{C}P(2)^3 .$$
Since the Hermitian inner product involves complex conjugates, this embedding cannot possibly be
holomorphic.  For instance if the first line in homogeneous coordinates is $[a,b,c]$ and the second
is $[d,e,f]$ then they satisfy $a\overline{d}=b\overline{e}+c\overline{f}=0$ where the overline
indicates complex conjugate.  Is there some way of playing around with complex structures to fix
this? Is there a similar map, that is better behaved?

REPLY [7 votes]: I think you can use wedge products. Choose $v \in V_1$, then $u \in V_2$, which is linearly independent. Map the flag to $([v], [v \wedge u]) \in (CP^{2})^2$. This should be well defined and holomorphic.