We introduce a characteristic vector with respect to a regular triangulation of the momentum polytope to compute the Hurwitz polytope of a given smooth toric variety. As a result, we prove that the convex hull of such vectors of all regular triangulations is included in the Hurwitz polytope of a smooth toric surface. In addition, we discuss the relations of such vectors to K-stability of pairs by Paul and toric K-stability by Donaldson.
The space of torus translations and degenerations of a projective toric variety forms a toric variety associated to the secondary fan of the integer points in the polytope corresponding to the toric variety. This is used to identify a moduli space of real degenerations with the secondary polytope. A configuration A of real vectors gives an irrational projective toric variety in a simplex. We identify a space of translations and degenerations of the irrational projective toric variety with the secondary polytope of A. For this, we develop a theory of irrational toric varieties associated to arb…
We introduce a collection of convex polytopes associated to a torus-equivariant vector bundle on a smooth complete toric variety. We show that the lattice points in these polytopes correspond to generators for the space of global sections and we relate edges to jets. Using the polytopes, we also exhibit toric vector bundles that are ample but not globally generated, and toric vector bundles that are ample and globally generated but not very ample.
We explain a method for calculating the cohomology of line bundles on a toric variety in terms of the cohomology of certain constructible sheaves on the polytope. We show its effective use by means of some examples.
We define a statistical measure of the typical size of short words in a linear code over a finite field. We prove that the dual toric codes coming from polytopes of degree one are characterized, among all dual toric codes, by being extremal with respect to this measure. We also give a geometric interpretation of the minimum distance of dual toric codes and characterize its extremal values. Finally, we obtain formulas for the parameters of both primal and dual toric codes associated to polytopes of degree one.
This note constructs the flat toric degeneration of the manifold FL_n of flags in C^n from [Gonciulea-Lakshmibai 96] as an explicit GIT quotient of the Gr"obner degeneration in [Knutson-Miller 03]. This implies that Schubert varieties degenerate to reduced unions of toric varieties, associated to faces indexed by rc-graphs (reduced pipe dreams) in the Gel'fand-Cetlin polytope. Our explicit description of the toric degeneration of FL_n provides a simple explanation of how Gel'fand-Cetlin decompositions for irreducible polynomial representations of GL_n arise via geometric quantization.
Toric geometry provides a bridge between the theory of polytopes and algebraic geometry: one can associate to each lattice polytope a polarized toric variety. In this thesis we explore this correspondence to classify smooth lattice polytopes having small degree, extending a classification provided by Dickenstein, Di Rocco and Piene. Our approach consists in interpreting the degree of a polytope as a geometric invariant of the corresponding polarized variety, and then applying techniques from Adjunction Theory and Mori Theory. In the opposite direction, we use the combinatorics of fans to descr…
Toric geometry provides a bridge between algebraic geometry and combinatorics of fans and polytopes. For each polarized toric variety (X,L) we have associated a polytope P. In this thesis we use this correspondence to study birational geometry for toric varieties. To this end, we address subjects such as Minimal Model Program, Mori fiber spaces, and chamber structures on the cone of effective divisors. We translate some results from these theories to the combinatorics of polytopes and use them to get structure theorems on space of polytopes. In particular, we treat toric varieties known as 2-F…
For any non-negative integer $k$ the $k$-th osculating dimension at a given point $x$ of a variety $X$ embedded in projective space gives a measure of the local positivity of order $k$ at that point. In this paper we show that a smooth toric embedding having maximal $k$-th osculating dimension, but not maximal $(k+1)$-th osculating dimension, at every point is associated to a Cayley polytope of order $k$. This result generalises an earlier characterisation by David Perkinson. In addition we prove that the above assumptions are equivalent to requiring that the Seshadri constant is exactly $k$ a…
A toric code is an error-correcting code determined by a toric variety or its associated integral convex polytope. We investigate $4$- and $5$-dimensional toric $3$-fold codes, which are codes arising from polytopes in $\mathbf{R}^3$ with four and five lattice points, respectively. By computing the minimum distances of each code, we fully classify the $4$-dimensional codes. We further present progress toward the same goal for dimension $5$ codes. In particular, we classify the $5$-dimensional toric $3$-fold codes arising from polytopes of width 1.
For any finite abelian group G, the equivariant Gromov-Witten invariants of C^r/G can be viewed as a certain kind of abelian Hurwitz-Hodge integrals. In this note, we use Tseng's orbifold quantum Riemann-Roch theorem to express this kind of abelian Hurwitz-Hodge integrals as a sum over Feynman graphs, where the weight of each graph is expressed in terms of descendant integrals over moduli spaces of stable curves and representations of G. This expression will play a crucial role in the proof of the remodeling conjecture (arXiv:0709.1453, arXiv:0807.0597) for affine toric Calabi-Yau 3-orbifolds …
In this survey I summarize the constructions of toric degenerations obtained from valuations and Gröbner theory and describe in which sense they are equivalent. I show how adapted bases can be used to generalize the classical Newton polytope to what is called a $\mathbb B$-Newton polytope. The $\mathbb B$-Newton polytope determines the Newton--Okounkov polytopes of all Khovanskii-finite valuations sharing the adapted standard monomial basis $\mathbb B$.
A real algebraic variety is maximal (with respect to the Smith-Thom inequality) if the sum of the Betti numbers (with $\mathbb{Z}_2$ coefficients) of the real part of the variety is equal to the sum of Betti numbers of its complex part. We prove that there exist polytopes that are not Newton polytopes of any maximal hypersurface in the corresponding toric variety. On the other hand we show that for any polytope $Δ$ there are families of hypersurfaces with the Newton polytopes $(λΔ)_{λ\in \mathbb{N}}$ that are asymptotically maximal when $λ$ tends to infinity. We also show that these results ge…
We associate a geometric space to an arbitrary convex polytope. Our construction parallels the construction by D. Cox of a toric variety as a GIT quotient. The spaces that we obtain are endowed with a natural stratification and perfectly mimic the features of toric varieties associated to rational convex polytopes.
We prove that the weight polytope of the Hurwitz form of a polarized smooth toric variety coincides with the convex hull of the characteristic vectors introduced in the previous work of Ogusu and the author with respect to all regular triangulations of the momentum polytope. Our proof relies on the combination of the two slope formulas of K-energy in the toric setting.
From a rational convex polytope of dimension $r\ge 2$ J.P. Hansen constructed an error correcting code of length $n=(q-1)^r$ over the finite field $\fq$. A rational convex polytope is the same datum as a normal toric variety and a Cartier divisor. The code is obtained evaluating rational functions of the toric variety defined by the polytope at the algebraic torus, and it is an evaluation code in the sense of Goppa. We compute the dimension of the code using cohomology. The minimum distance is estimated using intersection theory and mixed volumes, extending the methods of J.P. Hansen for plane…
The toric ideal of a $d$-dimensional flow polytope has an initial ideal generated by square-free monomials of degree at most $d$. The toric ideal of a flow polytope of dimension at most four has an initial ideal generated by square-free monomials of degree at most two, with the only exception of the four-dimensional Birkhoff polytope, whose toric ideal has an initial ideal generated by a square-free cubic monomial. The proof is based on a method to classify certain compressed flow polytopes, and a construction of a quadratic pulling triangulation of them. Along the way compressed flow polytope…
We define Q-normal lattice polytopes. Natural examples of such polytopes are Cayley sums of strictly combinatorially equivalent lattice polytopes, which correspond to particularly nice toric fibrations, namely toric projective bundles. In a recent paper Batyrev and Nill have suggested that there should be a bound, N(d), such that every lattice polytope of degree d and dimension at least N(d) decomposes as a Cayley sum. We give a sharp answer to this question for smooth Q-normal polytopes. We show that any smooth Q-normal lattice polytope P of dimension n and degree d is a Cayley sum of strictl…
In this expository note, we review the standard formulation of mirror symmetry for Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces in toric varieties, and compare this construction to a description of mirror symmetry for K3 surfaces which relies on a sublattice of the Picard lattice. We then show how to combine information about the Picard group of a toric ambient space with data about automorphisms of the toric variety to identify families of K3 surfaces with high Picard rank.
Toric geometry provides a bridge between the theory of polytopes and algebraic geometry: one can associate to each lattice polytope a polarized toric variety. In this paper we explore this correspondence to classify smooth lattice polytopes having small degree, extending a classification provided by Dickenstein, Di Rocco and Piene. Our approach consists in interpreting the degree of a polytope as a geometric invariant of the corresponding polarized variety, and then applying techniques from Adjunction Theory and Mori Theory.
We classify projective toric manifolds whose dual variety is not a hypersurface in the dual projective space. Under the standard dictionary between toric geometry and convex geometry, they correspond to certain convex Delzant integer polytopes, P, which we call defect polytopes. Using the geometrical classification we give a detailed description of defect polytopes and prove that they are characterized by the vanishing of a combinatorial invariant, denoted by c(P). We further prove that a related invariant, c*(P), is nonnegative, for any simple convex integral polytope.
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 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.
Due to a previous result which states that contact varieties are isomorphic to certain varieties, the momentum polytopes of contact manifolds are convex.
It is shown that up to dimension four, the toric ideal of a quiver polytope is generated in degree two, with the only exception of the four-dimensional Birkhoff polytope. As a consequence, Bøgvad's conjecture holds for quiver polytopes of dimension at most four. In arbitrary dimension, the toric ideal of a compressed polytope is generated in degree two if the polytope has no neighbouring singular vertices. Furthermore, the toric ideal of a compressed polytope with at most one singular vertex has a quadratic Gröbner basis.
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.
The slack ideal of a polytope is a saturated determinantal ideal that gives rise to a new model for the realization space of the polytope. The simplest slack ideals are toric and have connections to projectively unique polytopes. We prove that if a projectively unique polytope has a toric slack ideal, then it is the toric ideal of the bipartite graph of vertex-facet non-incidences of the polytope. The slack ideal of a polytope is contained in this toric ideal if and only if the polytope is morally 2-level, a generalization of the 2-level property in polytopes. We show that polytopes that do no…
It is well-known that the Eulerian polynomials, which count permutations in $S_n$ by their number of descents, give the $h$-polynomial/$h$-vector of the simple polytopes known as permutohedra, the convex hull of the $S_n$-orbit for a generic weight in the weight lattice of $S_n$. Therefore the Eulerian polynomials give the Betti numbers for certain smooth toric varieties associated with the permutohedra. In this paper we derive recurrences for the $h$-vectors of a family of polytopes generalizing this. The simple polytopes we consider arise as the orbit of a non-generic weight, namely a weight…
Given a smooth projective toric variety $X_Σ$ of complex dimension $n$, Fang-Liu-Treumann-Zaslow \cite{FLTZ} showed that there is a quasi-embedding of the differential graded (dg) derived category of coherent sheaves $Coh(X_Σ)$ into the dg derived category of constructible sheaves on a torus $Sh(T^n, Λ_Σ)$. Recently, Kuwagaki \cite{Ku2} proved that the quasi-embedding is a quasi-equivalence, and generalized the result to toric stacks. Here we give a different proof in the smooth projective case, using non-characteristic deformation of sheaves to find twisted polytope sheaves that co-represent …
The purpose of the present paper is threefold. First: giving a treatise on weighted projective spaces by the toric point of view. Second: providing characterizations of fans and polytopes giving weighted projective spaces, with particular focus on a kind of \emph{recognition process} of toric data like fans and polytopes. Third: building a mathematical framework for the algorithmic and computational approach to wps's realized in [23,24].
Let $G$ be a semisimple algebraic group over $\mathbb{C}$. For a reduced word $\bf i$ of the longest element in the Weyl group of $G$ and a dominant integral weight $λ$, one can construct the string polytope $Δ_{\bf i}(λ)$, whose lattice points encode the character of the irreducible representation $V_λ$. The string polytope $Δ_{\bf i}(λ)$ is singular in general and combinatorics of string polytopes heavily depends on the choice of $\mathbf i$. In this paper, we study combinatorics of string polytopes when $G = SL_{n+1}(\mathbb{C})$, and present a sufficient condition on $\mathbf i$ such that …
Chow stability is one notion of Mumford's Geometric Invariant Theory for studying the moduli space of polarized varieties. Kapranov, Sturmfels and Zelevinsky detected that Chow stability of polarized toric varieties is determined by its inherent {\it secondary polytope}, which is a polytope whose vertices correspond to regular triangulations of the associated polytope \cite{KSZ}. In this paper, we give a purely convex-geometrical proof that the Chow form of a projective toric variety is $H$-semistable if and only if it is $H$-polystable with respect to the standard complex torus action $H$. Th…
In this paper we use toric geometry to investigate the topology of the totally non-negative part of the Grassmannian (Gr_{kn})_{\geq 0}. This is a cell complex whose cells Delta_G can be parameterized in terms of the combinatorics of plane-bipartite graphs G. To each cell Delta_G we associate a certain polytope P(G). The polytopes P(G) are analogous to the well-known Birkhoff polytopes, and we describe their face lattices in terms of matchings and unions of matchings of G. We also demonstrate a close connection between the polytopes P(G) and matroid polytopes. We then use the data of P(G) to d…
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.
Given a matrix Schubert variety $\overline{X_π}$, it can be written as $\overline{X_π}=Y_π\times \mathbb{C}^q$ (where $q$ is maximal possible). We characterize when $Y_π$ is toric (with respect to a $(\mathbb{C}^*)^{2n-1}$-action) and study the associated polytope $Φ(\mathbb{P}(Y_π))$ of its projectivization. We construct regular triangulations of $Φ(\mathbb{P}(Y_π))$ which we show are geometric realizations of a family of subword complexes. Subword complexes were introduced by Knutson and Miller in 2004, who also showed that they are homeomorphic to balls or spheres and raised the question of…
We prove that for smooth projective toric varieties, the Okounkov body of a $T$-invariant pseudo-effective divisor with respect to a $T$-invariant flag decomposes as a finite Minkowski sum of indecomposable polytopes. We prove that these indecomposable polytopes form a Minkowski base and that they correspond to the rays in the secondary fan. Moreover, we present an algorithm to find the Minkowski base.
For two elements $v$ and $w$ of the symmetric group $\mathfrak{S}_n$ with $v\leq w$ in Bruhat order, the Bruhat interval polytope $Q_{v,w}$ is the convex hull of the points $(z(1),\ldots,z(n))\in \mathbb{R}^n$ with $v\leq z\leq w$. It is known that the Bruhat interval polytope $Q_{v,w}$ is the moment map image of the Richardson variety $X^{v^{-1}}_{w^{-1}}$. We say that $Q_{v,w}$ is \emph{toric} if the corresponding Richardson variety $X_{w^{-1}}^{v^{-1}}$ is a toric variety. We show that when $Q_{v,w}$ is toric, its combinatorial type is determined by the poset structure of the Bruhat interva…
Classical toric varieties are among the simplest objects in algebraic geometry. They arise in an elementary fashion as varieties parametrized by monomials whose exponents are a finite subset $\mathcal{A}$ of $\mathbb{Z}^n$. They may also be constructed from a rational fan $Σ$ in $\mathbb{R}^n$. The combinatorics of the set $\mathcal{A}$ or fan $Σ$ control the geometry of the associated toric variety. These toric varieties have an action of an algebraic torus with a dense orbit. Applications of algebraic geometry in geometric modeling and algebraic statistics have long studied the nonnegative r…
We want to understand the geometry of all irreducible components of the toric Hilbert scheme. Until now it is known that the coherent component is (up to normalisation) the toric variety associated to the state polytope of the toric ideal. For the non-coherent components it was only known that there exists such a polytope describing the normalisation. Using the local equations and various facts about toric Hilbert schemes, we will derive an explicit construction of the polytope corresponding to the normalisation of the underlying reduced structure of a given non-coherent component of the toric…
Toric varieties play an important role both in symplectic and complex geometry. In symplectic geometry, the construction of a symplectic toric manifold from a smooth polytope is due to Delzant. In algebraic geometry, there is a more general construction using fans rather than polytopes. However, in case the fan is induced by a smooth polytope Audin showed both constructions to give isomorphic projective varieties. For rational but not necessarily smooth polytopes the Delzant construction was refined by Lerman and Tolman, leading to symplectic toric orbifolds or more generally, symplectic toric…
Bott-Samelson varieties are a twisted product of $\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}^1$'s with a map into $G/B$. These varieties are mostly studied in the case in which the map into $G/B$ is birational to the image; however in this paper we study a fiber of this map when it is not birational. We will see that in some cases the general fiber, which we christen a brick manifold, is a toric variety. In order to do so we use the moment map of a Bott-Samelson variety to translate this problem into one in terms of the "subword complexes" of Knutson and Miller. Pilaud and Stump realized certain subword complexes a…
For a particular toric variety, I explore to what extent the SYZ conjecture applied to the orbits of the torus action gives the mirror manifold, in the sense of Batyrev's mirror construction using reflexive polytopes.
