Schubert decompositions for ind-varieties of generalized flags

Let $\mathbf{G}$ be one of the ind-groups $GL(\infty)$, $O(\infty)$, $Sp(\infty)$ and $\mathbf{P}\subset \mathbf{G}$ be a splitting parabolic ind-subgroup. The ind-variety $\mathbf{G}/\mathbf{P}$ has been identified with an ind-variety of generalized flags in the paper "Ind-varieties of generalized flags as homogeneous spaces for classical ind-groups" (Int. Math. Res. Not. 2004, no. 55, 2935--2953) by I. Dimitrov and I. Penkov. In the present paper we define a Schubert cell on $\mathbf{G}/\mathbf{P}$ as a $\mathbf{B}$-orbit on $\mathbf{G}/\mathbf{P}$, where $\mathbf{B}$ is any Borel ind-subgroup of $\mathbf{G}$ which intersects $\mathbf{P}$ in a maximal ind-torus. A significant difference with the finite-dimensional case is that in general $\mathbf{B}$ is not conjugate to an ind-subgroup of $\mathbf{P}$, whence $\mathbf{G}/\mathbf{P}$ admits many non-conjugate Schubert decompositions. We study the basic properties of the Schubert cells, proving in particular that they are usual finite-dimensional cells or are isomorphic to affine ind-spaces. We then define Schubert ind-varieties as closures of Schubert cells and study the smoothness of Schubert ind-varieties. Our approach to Schubert ind-varieties differs from an earlier approach by H. Salmasian in "Direct limits of Schubert varieties and global sections of line bundles" (J. Algebra 320 (2008), 3187--3198).