Block number, descents and Schur positivity of fully commutative elements in $B_n$

The distribution of Coxeter descents and block number over the set of fully commutative elements in the hyperoctahedral group $B_n$, $\text{FC}(B_n)$, is studied in this paper. We prove that the associated Chow quasi-symmetric generating function is equal to a non-negative sum of products of two Schur functions. The proof involves a decomposition of $\text{FC}(B_n)$ into a disjoint union of two-sided Barbash-Vogan combinatorial cells, a type $B$ extension of Rubey’s descent preserving involution on $321$-avoiding permutations and a detailed study of the intersection of $\text{FC}(B_n)$ with $S_n$-cosets which yields a new decomposition of $\text{FC}(B_n)$ into disjoint subsets called fibers. We also compare two different type $B$ Schur-positivity notions, arising from works of Chow and Poirier