We give an explicit raising operator formula for the modified Macdonald polynomials $\tilde {H}_{\mu }(X;q,t)$, which follows from our recent formula for $\nabla $ on an LLT polynomial and the Haglund-Haiman-Loehr formula expressing modified Macdonald polynomials as sums of LLT polynomials. Our method just as easily yields a formula for a family of symmetric functions $\tilde {H}^{1,n}(X;q,t)$ that we call $1,n$-Macdonald polynomials, which reduce to a scalar multiple of $\tilde {H}_{\mu }(X;q,t)$ when $n=1$. We conjecture that the coefficients of $1,n$-Macdonald polynomials in terms of Schur functions belong to ${\mathbb N}[q,t]$, generalizing Macdonald positivity.

We prove an explicit inverse Chevalley formula in the equivariant K-theory of semi-infinite flag manifolds of simply laced type. By an ‘inverse Chevalley formula’ we mean a formula for the product of an equivariant scalar with a Schubert class, expressed as a $\mathbb {Z}\left [q^{\pm 1}\right ]$ -linear combination of Schubert classes twisted by equivariant line bundles. Our formula applies to arbitrary Schubert classes in semi-infinite flag manifolds of simply laced type and equivariant scalars $e^{\lambda }$ , where $\lambda $ is an arbitrary minuscule weight. By a result of Stembridge, our formula completely determines the inverse Chevalley formula for arbitrary weights in simply laced type except for type $E_8$ . The combinatorics of our formula is governed by the quantum Bruhat graph, and the proof is based on a limit from the double affine Hecke algebra. Thus our formula also provides an explicit determination of all nonsymmetric q-Toda operators for minuscule weights in ADE type.

We introduce a $q,\,t$-enumeration of Dyck paths that are forced to touch the main diagonal at specific points and forbidden to touch elsewhere and conjecture that it describes the action of the Macdonald theory $\nabla $ operator applied to a Hall–Littlewood polynomial. Our conjecture refines several earlier conjectures concerning the space of diagonal harmonics including the “shuffle conjecture” (Duke J. Math. 126 (2005), pp. 195 − 232) for $\nabla {{e}_{n}}\left[ X \right]$. We bring to light that certain generalized Hall–Littlewood polynomials indexed by compositions are the building blocks for the algebraic combinatorial theory of $q,\,t$-Catalan sequences, and we prove a number of identities involving these functions.