We introduce a construction of oriented matroids from a triangulation of a product of two simplices. For this, we use the structure of such a triangulation in terms of polyhedral matching fields. The oriented matroid is composed of compatible chirotopes on the cells in a matroid subdivision of the hypersimplex, which might be of independent interest. In particular, we generalize this using the language of matroids over hyperfields, which gives a new approach to construct matroids over hyperfields. A recurring theme in our work is that various tropical constructions can be extended beyond tropicalization with new formulations and proof methods.
Given a coloration of the vertices of a triangulation of a manifold, we give homological conditions on the chromatic complexes under which it is possible to obtain a rainbow simplex
It is known that a lattice path matroid polytope can be associated with two given noncrossing lattice paths on $\mathbb{Z}\times\mathbb{Z}$ with the same end points. In this short note we give explicit formulae for the $f$-vector, toric $f$- and $g$-polynomials of a lattice path matroid polytope when two boundary paths enclose a hook shape.
Given integers $k$ and $m$ with $k \geq 2$ and $m \geq 2$, let $P$ be an empty simplex of dimension $(2k-1)$ whose $δ$-polynomial is of the form $1+(m-1)t^k$. In the present paper, the necessary and sufficient condition for the $k$-th dilation $kP$ of $P$ to have a regular unimodular triangulation will be presented.
A flip is a minimal move between two triangulations of a polytope. An open question is whether any two triangulations of the product of two simplices can be connected through a series of flips. This was proven in the case where one of the simplices is a triangle by Santos in 2005. In this paper we extend this to when one of the simplices is a tetrahedron.
The acyclic system conjecture of Ardila and Ceballos can be interpreted as saying the following: "Every triangulation of the 3-skeleton of a product of two simplices can be extended to a triangulation of the whole product". We show a counter-example to this. Motivation for this conjecture comes from a related conjecture, the "spread-out simplices" conjecture of Ardila and Billey. We give some necessary conditions that counter-examples to this second conjecture (if they exist) must satisfy.
For each integer partition $\mathbf{q}$ with $d$ parts, we denote by $Δ_{(1,\mathbf{q})}$ the lattice simplex obtained as the convex hull in $\mathbb{R}^d$ of the standard basis vectors along with the vector $-\mathbf{q}$. For $\mathbf{q}$ with two distinct parts such that $Δ_{(1,\mathbf{q})}$ is reflexive and has the integer decomposition property, we establish a characterization of the lattice points contained in $Δ_{(1,\mathbf{q})}$. We then construct a Gröbner basis with a squarefree initial ideal of the toric ideal defined by these simplices. This establishes the existence of a regular un…
Triangulations of the cube into a minimal number of simplices without additional vertices have been studied by several authors over the past decades. For $3\leq n\leq 7$ this so-called simplexity of the unit cube $I^n$ is now known to be $5,16,67,308,1493$, respectively. In this paper, we study triangulations of $I^n$ with simplices that only have nonobtuse dihedral angles. A trivial example is the standard triangulation into $n!$ simplices. In this paper we show that, surprisingly, for each $n\geq 3$ there is essentially only one other nonobtuse triangulation of $I^n$, and give its explicit c…
Products of simplices, called simplotopes, and their triangulations arise naturally in algorithmic applications in game theory and optimization. We develop techniques to derive lower bounds for the size of simplicial covers and triangulations of simplotopes, including those with interior vertices. We establish that a minimal triangulation of a product of two simplices is given by a vertex triangulation, i.e., one without interior vertices. For products of more than two simplices, we produce bounds for products of segments and triangles. Aside from cubes, these are the first known lower bounds …
We present estimates of number of simplices of given dimension of classical compact Lie groups. As in the previous work \cite{GMP2} the approach is a combination of an estimate of number of vertices with a use of valuation of the covering type by cohomological argument of \cite{GMP} and application of the recent versions of the Lower Bound Theorem of combinatorial topology. For the case of exceptional Lie groups we made a complete calculation using the description of their cohomology rings given by the first and third author. For infinite increasing series of Lie groups of growing dimension $d…
In 1967 Herbert Scarf suggested a new proof of Brouwer fixed point theorem based on a surprising analogue of Sperner's lemma. This analogue was motivated by Scarf's work in game theory and mathematical economics. Moreover, Scarf proved a much general version of Sperner's lemma dealing with colorings by vectors. The present paper begins by revisiting Scarf's ideas from the point of view of the basic theory of simplicial cochains in the spirit of author's papers arXiv:1909.00940 and arXiv:2012.13104. After this we get to the main new results of the paper, namely, to a generalization of Scarf res…
We introduce the Dyck path triangulation of the cartesian product of two simplices $Δ_{n-1}\timesΔ_{n-1}$. The maximal simplices of this triangulation are given by Dyck paths, and its construction naturally generalizes to produce triangulations of $Δ_{r\ n-1}\timesΔ_{n-1}$ using rational Dyck paths. Our study of the Dyck path triangulation is motivated by extendability problems of partial triangulations of products of two simplices. We show that whenever $m\geq k>n$, any triangulation of $Δ_{m-1}^{(k-1)}\timesΔ_{n-1}$ extends to a unique triangulation of $Δ_{m-1}\timesΔ_{n-1}$. Moreover, with …
We show that no minimal vertex triangulation of a closed, connected, orientable 2-manifold of genus 6 admits a polyhedral embedding in R^3. We also provide examples of minimal vertex triangulations of closed, connected, orientable 2-manifolds of genus 5 that do not admit any polyhedral embeddings. We construct a new infinite family of non-realizable triangulations of surfaces. These results were achieved by transforming the problem of finding suitable oriented matroids into a satisfiability problem. This method can be applied to other geometric realizability problems, e.g. for face lattices of…
We investigate the line arrangement that results from intersecting d complete flags in C^n. We give a combinatorial description of the matroid T_{n,d} that keeps track of the linear dependence relations among these lines. We prove that the bases of the matroid T_{n,3} characterize the triangles with holes which can be tiled with unit rhombi. More generally, we provide evidence for a conjectural connection between the matroid T_{n,d}, the triangulations of the product of simplices Delta_{n-1} x Δ_{d-1}, and the arrangements of d tropical hyperplanes in tropical (n-1)-space. Our work provides a …
We show that there is no triangulation of the infinite real Grassmannian of k-planes in R^\infty which is nicely situated with respect to the coordinate axes. In terms of matroid theory, this says there is no triangulation of the Grassmannian subdividing the matroid stratification. This is proved by an argument in projective geometry, considering a specific sequence of configurations of points in the plane.
Develin and Sturmfels showed that regular triangulations of $Δ_{n-1} \times Δ_{d-1}$ can be thought as tropical polytopes. Tropical oriented matroids were defined by Ardila and Develin, and were conjectured to be in bijection with all subdivisions of $Δ_{n-1} \times Δ_{d-1}$. In this paper, we show that any triangulation of $Δ_{n-1} \times Δ_{d-1}$ encodes a tropical oriented matroid. We also suggest a new class of combinatorial objects that may describe all subdivisions of a bigger class of polytopes.
We use the Cayley Trick to study polyhedral subdivisions of the product of two simplices. For arbitrary (fixed) $l$, we show that the numbers of regular and non-regular triangulations of $Δ^l\timesΔ^k$ grow, respectively, as $k^{Θ(k)}$ and $2^{Ω(k^2)}$. For the special case of $l=2$, we relate triangulations to certain class of lozenge tilings. This allows us to compute the exact number of triangulations up to $k=15$, show that the number grows as $e^{βk^2/2 + o(k^2)}$ where $β\simeq 0.32309594$ and prove that the set of all triangulations is connected under geometric bistellar flips. The latt…
In a previous work, we gave a construction of (not necessarily realizable) oriented matroids from a triangulation of a product of two simplices. In this follow-up paper, we use a variant of Viro's patchworking to derive a topological representation of the oriented matroid directly from the polyhedral structure of the triangulation, hence finding a combinatorial manifestation of patchworking besides tropical algebraic geometry. We achieve this by rephrasing the patchworking procedure as a controlled cell merging process, guided by the structure of tropical oriented matroids. A key insight is a …
We review an approach which aims at studying discrete (pseudo-)manifolds in dimension $d\geq 2$ and called random tensor models. More specifically, we insist on generalizing the two-dimensional notion of $p$-angulations to higher dimensions. To do so, we consider families of triangulations built out of simplices with colored faces. Those simplices can be glued to form new building blocks, called bubbles which are pseudo-manifolds with boundaries. Bubbles can in turn be glued together to form triangulations. The main challenge is to classify the triangulations built from a given set of bubbles …
We study the combinatorial properties of a tropical hyperplane arrangement. We define tropical oriented matroids, and prove that they share many of the properties of ordinary oriented matroids. We show that a tropical oriented matroid determines a subdivision of a product of two simplices, and conjecture that this correspondence is a bijection.
A dissection of a convex d-polytope is a partition of the polytope into d-simplices whose vertices are among the vertices of the polytope. Triangulations are dissections that have the additional property that the set of all its simplices forms a simplicial complex. The size of a dissection is the number of d-simplices it contains. This paper compares triangulations of maximal size with dissections of maximal size. We also exhibit lower and upper bounds for the size of dissections of a 3-polytope and analyze extremal size triangulations for specific non-simplicial polytopes: prisms, antiprisms,…
We investigate a PL topology question: which circle bundles can be triangulated over a given triangulation of the base? The question got a simple answer emphasizing the role of minimal triangulations encoded by local systems of circular permutations of vertices of the base simplices. The answer is based on an experimental fact: classical Huntington transitivity axiom for cyclic orders can be expressed as the universal binary Chern cocycle.
Let $S$ be a $k$-colored (finite) set of $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^d$, $d\geq 3$, in general position, that is, no {$(d + 1)$} points of $S$ lie in a common $(d - 1)$}-dimensional hyperplane. We count the number of empty monochromatic $d$-simplices determined by $S$, that is, simplices which have only points from one color class of $S$ as vertices and no points of $S$ in their interior. For $3 \leq k \leq d$ we provide a lower bound of $Ω(n^{d-k+1+2^{-d}})$ and strengthen this to $Ω(n^{d-2/3})$ for $k=2$. On the way we provide various results on triangulations of point sets in $\mathbb{R}^d$. …
The structure of zero and nonzero minors in the Grassmannian leads to rich combinatorics of matroids. In this paper, we investigate an even richer structure of possible equalities and inequalities between the minors in the positive Grassmannian. It was previously shown that arrangements of equal minors of largest value are in bijection with the simplices in a certain triangulation of the hypersimplex that was studied by Stanley, Sturmfels, Lam and Postnikov. Here we investigate the entire set of arrangements and its relations with this triangulation. First, we show that second largest minors c…
We give an example of a three-dimensional zonotope whose set of tight zonotopal tilings is not connected by flips. Using this, we show that the set of triangulations of $Δ^4 \times Δ^n$ is not connected by flips for large $n$. Our proof makes use of a non-explicit probabilistic construction.
Let $P$ and $Q$ be polytopes, the first of "low" dimension and the second of "high" dimension. We show how to triangulate the product $P \times Q$ efficiently (i.e., with few simplices) starting with a given triangulation of $Q$. Our method has a computational part, where we need to compute an efficient triangulation of $P \times Δ^m$, for a (small) natural number $m$ of our choice. $Δ^m$ denotes the $m$-simplex. Our procedure can be applied to obtain (asymptotically) efficient triangulations of the cube $I^n$: We decompose $I^n = I^k \times I^{n-k}$, for a small $k$. Then we recursively assum…
Tropical oriented matroids were defined by Ardila and Develin in 2007. They are a tropical analogue of classical oriented matroids in the sense that they encode the properties of the types of points in an arrangement of tropical hyperplanes -- in much the same way as the covectors of (classical) oriented matroids describe the types in arrangements of linear hyperplanes. Ardila and Develin proved that tropical oriented matroids can be represented as mixed subdivisions of dilated simplices. In this paper we show that this correspondence is a bijection. Moreover, a tropical analogue for the Topol…
L. Lovasz has shown that Sperner's combinatorial lemma admits a generalization involving a matroid defined on the set of vertices of the associated triangulation. Inspired by this result we prove that classical Ky Fan's theorem admits an oriented matroid generalization of similar nature. Ky Fan's theorem is obtained as a corollary if the underlying oriented matroid is chosen to be the alternating matroid C^{m,r} .
Center for Combinatorics, LPMC,Nankai University（南开大学组合数学中心）；School of Mathematical Sciences,Capital Normal University（首都师范大学数学科学学院）；School of Mathematics and Statistics,Beijing Institute of Technology（北京理工大学数学与统计学院）
We express the matroid polytope $P_M$ of a matroid $M$ as a signed Minkowski sum of simplices, and obtain a formula for the volume of $P_M$. This gives a combinatorial expression for the degree of an arbitrary torus orbit closure in the Grassmannian $Gr_{k,n}$. We then derive analogous results for the independent set polytope and the associated flag matroid polytope of $M$. Our proofs are based on a natural extension of Postnikov's theory of generalized permutohedra.
Sperner's lemma is a statement about labeled triangulations of a simplex. McLennan and Tourky (2007) provided a novel proof of Sperner's Lemma by examining volumes of simplices in a triangulation under time-linear simplex-linear deformation. We adapt a similar argument to prove Tucker's Lemma on a triangulated cross-polytope $P$. The McLennan-Tourky technique does not directly apply because this deformation may distort the volume of $P$. We remedy this by inscribing $P$ in its dual polytope, triangulating it, and considering how the volumes of deformed simplices behave.
We construct minimal cellular resolutions of squarefree monomial ideals arising from hyperplane arrangements, matroids and oriented matroids. These are Stanley-Reisner ideals of complexes of independent sets, and of triangulations of Lawrence matroid polytopes. Our resolution provides a cellular realization of Stanley's formula for their Betti numbers. For unimodular matroids our resolutions are related to hyperplane arrangements on tori, and we recover the resolutions constructed by Bayer, Popescu and Sturmfels. We resolve the combinatorial problems posed in their paper by computing Mobius in…
We show that indecomposable two-term presilting complexes over $Π_{n}$, the preprojective algebra of $A_{n}$, are in bijection with internal $n$-simplices in the prism $Δ_{n} \times Δ_{1}$, the product of an $n$-simplex with a 1-simplex. We show further that this induces a bijection between triangulations of $Δ_{n} \times Δ_{1}$ and two-term silting complexes over $Π_{n}$ such that bistellar flips of triangulations correspond to mutations of two-term silting complexes. These bijections are shown to compatible with the known bijections involving the symmetric group.
Ardila and Develin's paper on tropical oriented hyperplane arrangements and tropical oriented matroids defines tropical oriented matroids and conjectures a bijection between them and triangulations of products of simplices $Δ_{n-1} \times Δ_{d-1}$. Oh and Yoo recently confirmed this conjecture; however, neither group addressed the case of hyperplanes that are not in generic position. These non-generic arrangements do not correspond to tropical oriented matroids, but they encode information about subdivisions of $Δ_{n-1} \times Δ_{d-1}$. This note considers the non-generic case and presents som…
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 …
In this note, we investigate some of the fundamental algebraic and geometric properties of $s$-lecture hall simplices and their generalizations. We show that all $s$-lecture hall order polytopes, which simultaneously generalize $s$-lecture hall simplices and order polytopes, satisfy a property which implies the integer decomposition property. This answers one conjecture of Hibi, Olsen and Tsuchiya. By relating $s$-lecture hall polytopes to alcoved polytopes, we then use this property to show that families of $s$-lecture hall simplices admit a quadratic Gröbner basis with a square-free initial …
The aim of this paper is to study alcoved polytopes, which are polytopes arising from affine Coxeter arrangements. This class of convex polytopes includes many classical polytopes, for example, the hypersimplices. We compare two constructions of triangulations of hypersimplices due to Stanley and Sturmfels and explain them in terms of alcoved polytopes. We study triangulations of alcoved polytopes, the adjacency graphs of these triangulations, and give a combinatorial formula for volumes of these polytopes. In particular, we study a class of matroid polytopes, which we call the multi-hypersimp…
The active bijection for oriented matroids (and real hyperplane arrangements, and graphs, as particular cases) is introduced and investigated by the authors in a series of papers. Given any oriented matroid defined on a linearly ordered ground set, we exhibit one particularité of its bases, which we call its active basis, with remarkable properties. It preserves activities (for oriented matroids in the sense of Las Vergnas, for matroid bases in the sense of Tutte), as well as some active partitions of the ground set associated with oriented matroids and matroid bases. It yields a canonical bij…
We introduce and study filtrations of a matroid on a linearly ordered ground set, which are particular sequences of nested sets. A given basis can be decomposed into a uniquely defined sequence of bases of minors, such that these bases have an internal/external activity equal to 1/0 or 0/1 (in the sense of Tutte polynomial activities). This decomposition, which we call the active filtration/partition of the basis, refines the known partition of the ground set into internal and external elements with respect to a given basis. It can be built by a certain closure operator, which we call the acti…
In this paper we study an alternating sign matrix analogue of the Chan-Robbins-Yuen polytope, which we call the ASM-CRY polytope. We show that this polytope has Catalan many vertices and its volume is equal to the number of standard Young tableaux of staircase shape; we also determine its Ehrhart polynomial. We achieve the previous by proving that the members of a family of faces of the alternating sign matrix polytope which includes ASM-CRY are both order and flow polytopes. Inspired by the above results, we relate three established triangulations of order and flow polytopes, namely Stanley's…
Leclerc and Zelevinsky, motivated by the study of quasi-commuting quantum flag minors, introduced the notions of strongly separated and weakly separated collections. These notions are closely related to the theory of cluster algebras, to the combinatorics of the double Bruhat cells, and to the totally positive Grassmannian. A key feature, called the purity phenomenon, is that every maximal by inclusion strongly (resp., weakly) separated collection of subsets in $[n]$ has the same cardinality. In this paper, we extend these notions and define $\mathcal{M}$-separated collections for any oriented…
Principal circle bundle over a PL polyhedron can be triangulated and thus obtains combinatorics. The triangulation is assembled from triangulated circle bundles over simplices. To every triangulated circle bundle over a simplex we associate a necklace (in combinatorial sense). We express rational local formulas for all powers of first Chern class in the terms of mathematical expectations of parities of the associated necklaces. This rational parity is a combinatorial isomorphism invariant of triangulated circle bundle over simplex, measuring mixing by triangulation of the circular graphs over …
