We introduce the notion of barycentric transformation of Fano polytopes, from which we can assign a certain type to each Fano polytope. The type can be viewed as a measure of the extent to which the given Fano polytope is close to be Kähler-Einstein. In particular, we expect that every Kähler-Einstein or symmetric Fano polytope is of type $B_\infty$. We verify this expectation for some low dimensional cases. We emphasize that for a Fano polytope $X$ of dimension $1$, $3$ or $5$, $X$ is Kähler-Einstein if and only if it is of type $B_\infty$.
The correspondence between Gorenstein Fano toric varieties and reflexive polytopes has been generalized by Ilten and Süß to a correspondence between Gorenstein Fano complexity-one $T$-varieties and Fano divisorial polytopes. Motivated by the finiteness of reflexive polytopes in fixed dimension, we show that over a fixed base polytope, there are only finitely many Fano divisorial polytopes, up to equivalence. We classify two-dimensional Fano divisorial polytopes, recovering Huggenberger's classification of Gorenstein del Pezzo $\mathbb{K}^*$-surfaces. Furthermore, we show that any three-dimensi…
Gorenstein Fano polytopes arising from finite partially ordered sets will be introduced. Then we study the problem which partially ordered sets yield smooth Fano polytopes.
In this paper, we consider terminal reflexive polytopes arising from finite directed graphs and study the problem of deciding which directed graphs yield smooth Fano polytopes. We show that any centrally symmetric or pseudo-symmetric smooth Fano polytopes can be obtained from directed graphs. Moreover, by using directed graphs, we provide new examples of smooth Fano polytopes whose corresponding varieties admit Kähler--Einstein metrics.
Let $\mathcal{F}(n)$ be the set of smooth Fano $n$-polytopes up to unimocular equivalence. In this paper, we consider the F-equivalence or I-equivalence classes for $\mathcal{F}(n)$ and introduce F-isolated or I-isolated smooth Fano $n$-polytopes. First, we describe all of F-equivalence classes and I-equivalence classes for $\mathcal{F}(5)$. We also give a complete characterization of F-equivalence classes (I-equivalence classes) for smooth Fano $n$-polytopes with $n+3$ vertices and construct a family of I-isolated smooth Fano polytopes.
We classify the d-dimensional simplicial, terminal, and reflexive polytopes with at least 3d-2 vertices. In particular, it turns out that these are all smooth Fano polytopes. This improves on previous results of Casagrande in 2006 and Oebro in 2008. Smooth Fano polytopes play a role in algebraic geometry and mathematical physics.
The classification of toric Fano manifolds with large Picard number corresponds to the classification of smooth Fano polytopes with large number of vertices. A smooth Fano polytope is a polytope that contains the origin in its interior such that the vertex set of each facet forms a lattice basis. Casagrande showed that any smooth $d$-dimensional Fano polytope has at most $3d$ vertices. Smooth Fano polytopes in dimension $d$ with at least $3d-2$ vertices are completely known. The main result of this paper deals with the case of $3d-k$ vertices for $k$ fixed and $d$ large. It implies that there …
The Fine interior $Δ^{\text{FI}}$ of a $d$-dimensional lattice polytope $Δ$ is a rational subpolytope of $Δ$ which is important for constructing minimal birational models of non-degenerate hypersurfaces defined by Laurent polynomials with Newton polytope $Δ$. This paper presents some computational results on the Fine interior of all $674,\!688$ three-dimensional canonical Fano polytopes.
Let X be a complex, Gorenstein, Q-factorial, toric Fano variety. We prove two conjectures on the maximal Picard number of X in terms of its dimension and its pseudo-index, and characterize the boundary cases. Equivalently, we determine the maximal number of vertices of a simplicial reflexive polytope.
We introduce the notion of cracked polytope, and - making use of joint work with Coates and Kasprzyk - construct the associated toric variety $X$ as a subvariety of a non-singular toric variety $Y$ under certain conditions. Restricting to the case in which this subvariety is a complete intersection, we present a sufficient condition for a smoothing of $X$ to exist inside $Y$. We exhibit a relative anti-canonical divisor for this smoothing of $X$, and show that the general member is simple normal crossings.
We construct Fano threefolds with very ample anti-canonical bundle and Picard rank greater than one from cracked polytopes - polytopes whose intersection with a complete fan forms a set of unimodular polytopes - using Laurent inversion; a method developed jointly with Coates-Kasprzyk. We also give constructions of rank one Fano threefolds from cracked polytopes, following work of Christophersen-Ilten and Galkin. We explore the problem of classifying polytopes cracked along a given fan in three dimensions, and classify the unimodular polytopes which can occur as 'pieces' of a cracked polytope.
Let $Δ$ be a $3$-dimensional lattice polytope containing exactly one interior lattice point. We give a simple combinatorial formula for computing the stringy $E$-function of the $3$-dimensional canonical toric Fano variety $X_Δ$ associated with the polytope $Δ$. Using the stringy Libgober-Wood identity and our formula, we generalize the well-known combinatorial identity $\sum_{θ\preceq Δ\atop \dim (θ) =1} v(θ) \cdot v(θ^*) = 24$ holding in the case of $3$-dimensional reflexive polytopes $Δ$.
A reflexive polytope, respectively its associated Gorenstein toric Fano variety, is called pseudo-symmetric, if the polytope has a centrally symmetric pair of facets. Here we present a complete classification of pseudo-symmetric simplicial reflexive polytopes together with some applications. This generalizes a result of Ewald on pseudo-symmetric nonsingular toric Fano varieties.
We investigate Gorenstein toric Fano varieties by combinatorial methods using the notion of a reflexive polytope which appeared in connection to mirror symmetry. The paper contains generalisations of tools and previously known results for nonsingular toric Fano varieties. As applications we obtain new classification results, bounds of invariants and formulate conjectures concerning combinatorial and geometrical properties of reflexive polytopes.
We give an upper bound on the volume vol(P*) of a polytope P* dual to a d-dimensional lattice polytope P with exactly one interior lattice point, in each dimension d. This bound, expressed in terms of the Sylvester sequence, is sharp, and is achieved by the dual to a particular reflexive simplex. Our result implies a sharp upper bound on the volume of a d-dimensional reflexive polytope. Translated into toric geometry, this gives a sharp upper bound on the anti-canonical degree $(-K_X)^d$ of a d-dimensional toric Fano variety X with at worst canonical singularities.
We give a characterizaion of Gorenstein toric Fano $n$-folds with index $n-1$, which is called Gorenstein toric Del Pezzo $n$-folds, among toric varieties. In practice, we obtain a condition for a lattice $n$-polytope to be a Gorenstein Fano polytope. In our proof, we do not use Batyrev-Juny's classification of Gorenstein Fano polytopes.
There exist exactly 166 4-dimensional reflexive polytopes such that the corresponding 4-dimensional Gorenstein toric Fano varieties have at worst terminal singularities in codimension 3 and their anticanonical divisor is divisible by 2. For every such a polytope, one naturally obtains a family of Fano hypersurfaces X with at worst conifold singularities. A generic 3-dimensional Fano hypersurface X can be interpreted as a flat conifold degeneration of some smooth Fano 3-folds Y whose classification up to deformation was obtained by Iskovskikh, Mori and Mukai. In this case, both Fano varieties X…
Q-factorial Gorenstein toric Fano varieties X of dimension d with Picard number rho(X) correspond to simplicial reflexive d-polytopes with rho(X)+d vertices. Casagrande showed that any simplicial reflexive d-polytope has at most 3d vertices, if d is even, respectively, 3d-1, if d is odd. Moreover, it is known that equality for d even implies uniqueness up to unimodular equivalence. In this paper we completely classify all simplicial reflexive d-polytopes having 3d-1 vertices, corresponding to d-dimensional Q-factorial Gorenstein toric Fano varieties with Picard number 2d-1. For d even, there e…
We obtain 866 isomorphism classes of five-dimensional nonsingular toric Fano varieties using a computer program and the database of four-dimensional reflexive polytopes. The algorithm is based on the existence of facets of Fano polytopes having small integral distance from any vertex.
We propose a refined but natural notion of toric degenerations that respect a given embedding and show that within this framework a Gorenstein Fano variety can only be degenerated to a Gorenstein Fano toric variety if it is embedded via its anticanonical embedding. This also gives a precise criterion for reflexive polytopes to appear, which might be required for applications in mirror symmetry. For the proof of this statement we will study polytopes whose polar dual is a lattice polytope. As a byproduct we generalize a connection between the number of lattice points in a rational convex polyto…
Given a reductive group $G$ and a parabolic subgroup $P\subset G$, with maximaltorus $T$, we consider (following Dabrowski's work) the closure $X$ of a generic $T$-orbit in $G/P$, and determine in combinatorial termswhen the toric variety $X$ is $\mathbb{Q}$-Gorenstein Fano, extending in this way the classification of smooth Fano generic closures given by Voskresenski\uı and Klyachko. As an application, we apply the well known correspondence between Gorenstein Fano toric varieties and reflexive polytopes in order to exhibit which reflexive polytopes correspond to generic closures -- this list …
The Ehrhart quasi-polynomial of a rational polytope $P$ is a fundamental invariant counting lattice points in integer dilates of $P$. The quasi-period of this quasi-polynomial divides the denominator of $P$ but is not always equal to it: this situation is called quasi-period collapse. Polytopes experiencing quasi-period collapse appear widely across algebra and geometry, and yet the phenomenon remains largely mysterious. Using techniques from algebraic geometry - specifically the $\mathbb{Q}$-Gorenstein deformation theory of orbifold del Pezzo surfaces - we explain quasi-period collapse for ra…
Given a Laurent polynomial f, one can form the period of f: this is a function of one complex variable that plays an important role in mirror symmetry for Fano manifolds. Mutations are a particular class of birational transformations acting on Laurent polynomials in two variables; they preserve the period and are closely connected with cluster algebras. We propose a higher-dimensional analog of mutation acting on Laurent polynomials f in n variables. In particular we give a combinatorial description of mutation acting on the Newton polytope P of f, and use this to establish many basic facts ab…
Reflexive polytopes in n dimensions have attracted much attention both in mathematics and theoretical physics due to their connection to Fano n-folds and mirror symmetry. This work focuses on the 18 regular reflexive polytopes corresponding to smooth Fano 3-folds. For the first time, we show that all 18 regular reflexive polytopes have corresponding 2d (0,2) gauge theories realized by brane brick models. These 2d gauge theories can be considered as the worldvolume theories of D1-branes probing the toric Calabi-Yau 4-singularities whose toric diagrams are given by the associated regular reflexi…
We obtain a combinatorial description of Gorenstein spherical Fano varieties in terms of certain polytopes, generalizing the combinatorial description of Gorenstein toric Fano varieties by reflexive polytopes and its extension to Gorenstein horospherical Fano varieties due to Pasquier. Using this description, we show that the rank of the Picard group of an arbitrary $d$-dimensional $\mathbb{Q}$-factorial Gorenstein spherical Fano variety is bounded by $2d$. This paper also contains an overview of the description of the natural representative of the anticanonical divisor class of a spherical va…
A horospherical variety is a normal algebraic variety where a reductive algebraic group acts with an open orbit which is a torus bundle over a flag variety. For example, toric varieties and flag varieties are horospherical. In this paper, we classify Fano horospherical varieties in terms of certain rational polytopes that generalize the reflexive polytopes considered by V. Batyrev. Then, we obtain an upper bound on the degree of smooth Fano horospherical varieties, analogus to that given by O. Debarre in the toric case. We extend a recent result of C. Casagrande: the Picard number of any Fano …
Generalizing the notions of reflexive polytopes and nef-partitions of Batyrev and Borisov, we propose a mirror symmetry construction for Calabi-Yau complete intersections in Fano toric varieties.
Symmetric varieties are normal equivarient open embeddings of symmetric homogeneous spaces, and they are interesting examples of spherical varieties. We prove that all smooth Fano symmetric varieties with Picard number one admit Kähler-Einstein metrics by using a combinatorial criterion for K-stability of Fano spherical varieties obtained by Delcroix. For this purpose, we present their algebraic moment polytopes and compute the barycenter of each moment polytope with respect to the Duistermaat-Heckman measure.
We present a combinatorial criterion on reflexive polytopes of dimension 3 which gives a local-to-global obstruction for the smoothability of the corresponding Fano toric threefolds. As a result, we show examples of singular Gorenstein Fano toric threefolds which have compound Du Val, hence smoothable, singularities but are not smoothable.
It is pretty well-known that toric Fano varieties of dimension k with terminal singularities correspond to convex lattice polytopes P in R^k of positive finite volume, such that intersection of P and Z^k consists of the point 0 and vertices of P. Likewise, Q-factorial terminal toric singularities essentially correspond to lattice simplexes with no lattice points inside or on the boundary (except the vertices). There have been a lot work, especially in the last 20 years or so on classification of these objects. The main goal of this paper is to bring together these and related results, that are…
We classify Fano polygons with finite mutation class. This classification exploits a correspondence between Fano polygons and cluster algebras, refining the notion of singularity content due to Akhtar and Kasprzyk. We also introduce examples of cluster algebras associated to Fano polytopes in dimensions greater than two.
We show that there is a unique hypersurface of minimal degree passing through the non-faces of a polytope which is defined by a simple hyperplane arrangement. This generalizes the construction of the adjoint curve of a polygon by Wachspress in 1975. The defining polynomial of our adjoint hypersurface is the adjoint polynomial introduced by Warren in 1996. This is a key ingredient for the definition of Wachspress coordinates, which are barycentric coordinates on an arbitrary convex polytope. The adjoint polynomial also appears both in algebraic statistics, when studying the moments of uniform p…
We introduce a canonical strip hypothesis for Fano varieties. We show that the canonical strip hypothesis for a Fano variety implies that the zeros of the Hilbert polynomial of embedded Calabi--Yau and general type hypersurfaces are located on a vertical line. This extends, in particular, Villegas's `polynomial RH' for intersections in projective spaces to the case of CY and general type hyperplane sections in Grassmannians. We state a few conjectures on the Ehrhart polynomials of certain fan polytopes.
We prove a criterion for K-stability of a $\mathbb{Q}$-Fano spherical variety with respect to equivariant special test configurations, in terms of its moment polytope and some combinatorial data associated to the open orbit. Combined with the equivariant version of the Yau-Tian-Donaldson conjecture for Fano manifolds proved by Datar and Székelyhidi, it yields a criterion for the existence of a Kähler-Einstein metric on a spherical Fano manifold. The results hold also for modified K-stability and existence of Kähler-Ricci solitons.
We apply the combinatorial theory of spherical varieties to characterize the momentum polytopes of polarized projective spherical varieties. This enables us to derive a classification of these varieties, without specifying the open orbit, as well as a classification of all Fano spherical varieties. In the setting of multiplicity free compact and connected Hamiltonian manifolds, we obtain a necessary and sufficient condition involving momentum polytopes for such manifolds to be Kähler and classify the invariant compatible complex structures of a given Kähler multiplicity free compact and connec…
The Okounkov body is a construction which, to an effective divisor D on an n-dimensional algebraic variety X, associates a convex body in the n-dimensional Euclidean space R^n. It may be seen as a generalization of the moment polytope of an ample divisor on a toric variety, and it encodes rich numerical information about the divisor D. When constructing the Okounkov body, an intermediate product is a lattice semigroup, which we will call the Okounkov semigroup. Recently it was discovered that finite generation of the Okounkov semigroup has interesting geometric implication for X regarding tori…
We obtain a necessary and sufficient condition of existence of a K{ä}hler-Einstein metric on a $G\times G$-equivariant Fano compactification of a complex connected reductive group $G$ in terms of the associated polytope. This condition is not equivalent to the vanishing of the Futaki invariant. The proof relies on the continuity method and its translation into a real Monge-Amp{è}re equation, using the invariance under the action of a maximal compact subgroup $K\times K$.
