A common generalization for the chromatic polynomial and the flow polynomial of a graph $G$ is the Tutte polynomial $T(G;x,y)$. The combinatorial meaning for the coefficients of $T$ was discovered by Tutte at the beginning of its definition. However, for a long time the combinatorial meaning for the values of $T$ is missing, except for a few values such as $T(G;i,j)$, where $1\leq i,j\leq 2$, until recently for $T(G;1,0)$ and $T(G;0,1)$. In this third one of a series of papers, we introduce product valuations, cartesian product arrangements, and multivariable characteristic polynomials, and apply the theory of product arrangement to the tension-flow group associated with graphs. Three types of tension-flows are studied in details: elliptic, parabolic, and hyperbolic; each type produces a two-variable polynomial for graphs. Weighted polynomials are introduced and their reciprocity laws are obtained. The dual versions for the parabolic case turns out to include Whitney's rank generating polynomial and the Tutte polynomial as special cases. The product arrangement part is of interest for its own right. The application part to graphs can be modified to matroids.
Cayley polytopes were defined recently as convex hulls of Cayley compositions introduced by Cayley in 1857. In this paper we resolve Braun's conjecture, which expresses the volume of Cayley polytopes in terms of the number of connected graphs. We extend this result to two one-variable deformations of Cayley polytopes (which we call t-Cayley and t-Gayley polytopes), and to the most general two-variable deformations, which we call Tutte polytopes. The volume of the latter is given via an evaluation of the Tutte polynomial of the complete graph. Our approach is based on an explicit triangulation …
Tutte's dichromate T(x,y) is a well known graph invariant. Using the original definition in terms of internal and external activities as our point of departure, we generalize the valuations T(x,1) and T(1,y) to hypergraphs. In the definition, we associate activities to hypertrees, which are generalizations of the indicator function of the edge set of a spanning tree. We prove that hypertrees form a lattice polytope which is the set of bases in a polymatroid. In fact, we extend our invariants to integer polymatroids as well. We also examine hypergraphs that can be represented by planar bipartit…
This is a chapter destined for the book "Handbook of the Tutte Polynomial". The chapter is a composite. The first part is a brief introduction to Orlik-Solomon algebras. The second part sketches the theory of evaluative functions on matroid base polytopes and in particular, the G-invariant (as the subject is known late 2015). A third very short section is on Hopf-algebra or coalgebra structures in Tutte polynomial theory.
Let G be a connected bipartite graph with color classes E and V and root polytope Q. Regarding the hypergraph (V,E) induced by G, we prove that its interior polynomial is equivalent to the Ehrhart polynomial of Q, which in turn is equivalent to the h-vector of any triangulation of Q. It follows that the interior polynomials of (V,E) and its transpose (E,V) agree. When G is a complete bipartite graph, our result recovers a well known hypergeometric identity due to Saalschütz. It also implies that certain extremal coefficients in the Homfly polynomial of a special alternating link can be read of…
We recover the Tutte polynomial of a matroid, up to change of coordinates, from an Ehrhart-style polynomial counting lattice points in the Minkowski sum of its base polytope and scalings of simplices. Our polynomial has coefficients of alternating sign with a combinatorial interpretation closely tied to the Dawson partition. Our definition extends in a straightforward way to polymatroids, and in this setting our polynomial has Kálmán's internal and external activity polynomials as its univariate specialisations.
The Tutte polynomial for matroids is not directly applicable to polymatroids. For instance, deletion-contraction properties do not hold. We construct a polynomial for polymatroids which behaves similarly to the Tutte polynomial of a matroid, and in fact contains the same information as the Tutte polynomial when we restrict to matroids. This polynomial is constructed using lattice point counts in the Minkowski sum of the base polytope of a polymatroid and scaled copies of the standard simplex. We also show that, in the matroid case, our polynomial has coefficients of alternating sign, with a co…
This paper is concerned with the linkedness of Cartesian products of complete graphs. A graph with at least $2k$ vertices is {\it $k$-linked} if, for every set of $2k$ distinct vertices organised in arbitrary $k$ pairs of vertices, there are $k$ vertex-disjoint paths joining the vertices in the pairs. We show that the Cartesian product $K^{d_{1}+1}\times K^{d_{2}+1}$ of complete graphs $K^{d_{1}+1}$ and $K^{d_{2}+1}$ is $\floor{(d_{1}+d_{2})/2}$-linked for $d_{1},d_{2}\ge 2$, and this is best possible. %A polytope is said to be {\it $k$-linked} if its graph is $k$-linked. This result is connec…
We introduce a modular (integral) complementary polynomial $κ(G;x,y)$ ($κ_{\mathbbm z}(G;x,y)$) of two variables of a graph $G$ by counting the number of modular (integral) complementary tension-flows (CTF) of $G$ with an orientation $ε$. We study these polynomials by further introducing a cut-Eulerian equivalence relation on orientations and geometric structures such as the complementary open lattice polyhedron $Δ_\textsc{ctf}(G,ε)$, the complementary open 0-1 polytope $Δ^+_\textsc{ctf}(G,ε)$, and the complementary open lattice polytopes $Δ^ρ_\textsc{ctf}(G,ε)$ with respect to orientations $ρ…
Given an oriented graph G, the modular flow polynomial counts the number of nowhere-zero Z_k-flows of G. We give a description of the modular flow polynomial in terms of (open) Ehrhart polynomials of lattice polytopes. Using Ehrhart-Macdonald reciprocity we give a combinatorial interpretation for the values of the modular flow polynomial at negative arguments which answers a question of Beck and Zaslavsky (2006). Our construction extends to Z_l-tensions and we recover Stanley's reciprocity theorem for the chromatic polynomial. Combining the combinatorial reciprocity statements for flows and te…
The thickness $θ(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the minimum number of planar spanning subgraphs into which the graph $G$ can be decomposed. It is a topological invariant of a graph, which was defined by W.T. Tutte in 1963 and also has important applications to VLSI design. But comparing with other topological invariants, e.g. genus and crossing number, results about thickness of graphs are few. The only types of graphs whose thicknesses have been obtained are complete graphs, complete bipartite graphs and hypercubes. In this paper, by operations on graphs, the thickness of the cartesian product $K_n \B…
T. Kálmán (A version of Tutte's polynomial for hypergraphs, Adv. Math. 244 (2013) 823-873.) introduced the interior and exterior polynomials which are generalizations of the Tutte polynomial $T(x,y)$ on plane points $(1/x,1)$ and $(1,1/y)$ to hypergraphs. The two polynomials are defined under a fixed ordering of hyperedges, and are proved to be independent of the ordering using techniques of polytopes. In this paper, similar to the Tutte's original proof we provide a direct and elementary proof for the well-definedness of the interior and exterior polynomials of hypergraphs.
The Loopy Polynomial: from Tutte's Universal $V$-Function to Bizonotopal Geometry
Yanqi Lake Beijing Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Applications（燕京数学科学应用研究院）；Stockholm University（斯德哥尔摩大学）；Guangdong Technion–Israel Institute of Technology（广东以色列理工学院）；University of Oregon（俄勒冈大学）
This is the first one of a series of papers on association of orientations, lattice polytopes, and abelian group arrangements to graphs. The purpose is to interpret the integral and modular tension polynomials of graphs at zero and negative integers. The whole exposition is put under the framework of subgroup arrangements and the application of Ehrhart polynomials. Such viewpoint leads to the following main results of the paper: (i) the reciprocity law for integral tension polynomials; (ii) the reciprocity law for modular tension polynomials; and (iii) a new interpretation for the value of the…
We study the question of polytopality of graphs: when is a given graph the graph of a polytope? We first review the known necessary conditions for a graph to be polytopal, and we provide several families of graphs which satisfy all these conditions, but which nonetheless are not graphs of polytopes. Our main contribution concerns the polytopality of Cartesian products of non-polytopal graphs. On the one hand, we show that products of simple polytopes are the only simple polytopes whose graph is a product. On the other hand, we provide a general method to construct (non-simple) polytopal produc…
The 1-product of matrices $S_1 \in \mathbb{R}^{m_1 \times n_1}$ and $S_2 \in \mathbb{R}^{m_2 \times n_2}$ is the matrix in $\mathbb{R}^{(m_1+m_2) \times (n_1n_2)}$ whose columns are the concatenation of each column of $S_1$ with each column of $S_2$. Our main result is a polynomial time algorithm for the following problem: given a matrix $S$, is $S$ a 1-product, up to permutation of rows and columns? Our main motivation is a close link between the 1-product of matrices and the Cartesian product of polytopes, which goes through the concept of slack matrix. Determining whether a given matrix is …
Given two convex polytopes, the join, the cartesian product and the direct sum of them are well understood. In this paper we extend these three kinds of products to abstract polytopes and introduce a new product, called the topological product, which also arises in a natural way. We show that these products have unique prime factorization theorems. We use this to compute the automorphism group of a product in terms of the automorphism groups of the factors and show that (non trivial) products are almost never regular or two-orbit polytopes. We finish the paper by studying the monodromy group o…
The diamond product is the poset operation that when applied to the face lattices of two polytopes results in the face lattice of the Cartesian product of the polytopes. Application of the diamond product to two Eulerian posets is a bilinear operation on the cd-indices of the two posets, yielding a product on cd-polynomials. A lattice path interpretation is provided for this product of two cd-monomials.
Recently O. Bernardi gave a formula for the Tutte polynomial $T(x,y)$ of a graph, based on spanning trees and activities just like the original definition, but using a fixed ribbon structure to order the set of edges in a different way for each tree. The interior polynomial $I$ is a generalization of $T(x,1)$ to hypergraphs. We supply a Bernardi-type description of $I$ using a ribbon structure on the underlying bipartite graph $G$. Our formula works because it is determined by the Ehrhart polynomial of the root polytope of $G$ in the same way as $I$ is. To prove this we interpret the Bernardi …
This thesis explores two specific topics of discrete geometry, the multitriangulations and the polytopal realizations of products, whose connection is the problem of finding polytopal realizations of a given combinatorial structure. A k-triangulation is a maximal set of chords of the convex n-gon such that no k+1 of them mutually cross. We propose a combinatorial and geometric study of multitriangulations based on their stars, which play the same role as triangles of triangulations. This study leads to interpret multitriangulations by duality as pseudoline arrangements with contact points cove…
The magnitude of a graph is one of a family of cardinality-like invariants extending across mathematics; it is a cousin to Euler characteristic and geometric measure. Among its cardinality-like properties are multiplicativity with respect to cartesian product and an inclusion-exclusion formula for the magnitude of a union. Formally, the magnitude of a graph is both a rational function over Q and a power series over Z. It shares features with one of the most important of all graph invariants, the Tutte polynomial; for instance, magnitude is invariant under Whitney twists when the points of iden…
In this paper, we introduce polytopes ${\mathcal B}_G$ arising from root systems $B_n$ and finite graphs $G$, and study their combinatorial and algebraic properties. In particular, it is shown that ${\mathcal B}_G$ is reflexive if and only if $G$ is bipartite. Moreover, in the case, ${\mathcal B}_G$ has a regular unimodular triangulation. This implies that the $h^*$-polynomial of ${\mathcal B}_G$ is palindromic and unimodal when $G$ is bipartite. Furthermore, we discuss stronger properties, namely the $γ$-positivity and the real-rootedness of the $h^*$-polynomials. In fact, if $G$ is bipartite…
In this paper, we study algorithmic questions concerning products of matrices and their consequences for recognition algorithms for polyhedra. The 1-product of matrices $S_1$, $S_2$ is a matrix whose columns are the concatenation of each column of $S_1$ with each column of $S_2$. The $k$-product generalizes the $1$-product, by taking as input two matrices $S_1, S_2$ together with $k-1$ special rows of each of those matrices, and outputting a certain composition of $S_1,S_2$. Our study is motivated by a close link between the 1-product of matrices and the Cartesian product of polytopes, and mor…
Let $X$ be a $(d\times N)$-matrix. We consider the variable polytope $Π_X(u) = \{w \ge 0 : X w = u \}$. It is known that the function $T_X$ that assigns to a parameter $u \in \mathbb{R}^d$ the volume of the polytope $Π_X(u)$ is piecewise polynomial. The Brion-Vergne formula implies that the number of lattice points in $Π_X(u)$ can be obtained by applying a certain differential operator to the function $T_X$. In this article we slightly improve the Brion-Vergne formula and we study two spaces of differential operators that arise in this context: the space of relevant differential operators (i.e…
