The Chan-Robbins-Yuen polytope ($CRY_n$) of order $n$ is a face of the Birkhoff polytope of doubly stochastic matrices that is also a flow polytope of the directed complete graph $K_{n+1}$ with netflow $(1,0,0, \ldots , 0, -1)$. The volume and lattice points of this polytope have been actively studied, however its face structure has received less attention. We give generating functions and explicit formulas for computing the $f$-vector by using Hille's (2003) result bijecting faces of a flow polytope to certain graphs, as well as Andresen-Kjeldsen's (1976) result that enumerates certain subgraphs of the directed complete graph. We extend our results to flow polytopes of the complete graph having arbitrary (non-negative) netflow vectors and recover the $f$-vector of the Tesler polytope of Mészáros--Morales--Rhoades (2017).
Let $δ(\mathcal{P})$ be the $δ$-vector of a reflexive polytope $\mathcal{P} \subset \mathbb{R}^d$ of dimension $d$ and $δ(\mathcal{P} ^\vee)$ the $δ$-vector of the dual polytope $\mathcal{P}^\vee \subset \mathbb{R}^d$. In general, $δ(\mathcal{P})=δ(\mathcal{P}^\vee)$ does not hold. In this paper, we give a higher-dimensional construction of reflexive polytope whose $δ$-vector equals the $δ$-vector of the dual polytope. In particular, we consider the case that the reflexive polytope and the dual polytope are unimodularly equivalent.
Ordinary polytopes are known as a non-simplicial generalization of the cyclic polytopes. The face vectors of ordinary polytopes are shown to be log-concave.
Cyclic polytopes are generally known for being involved in the Upper Bound Theorem, but they have another extremal property which is less well known. Namely, the special shape of their f-vectors makes them applicable to certain constructions to present non-unimodal convex polytopes. Nevertheless, the f-vectors of cyclic polytopes themselves are unimodal.
We consider geometric and computational measures of complexity for sets of integer vectors, asking for a qualitative difference between $f$-vectors of simplicial and general $d$-polytopes, as well as flag $f$-vectors of $d$-polytopes and regular CW $(d-1)$-spheres, for $d\ge 4$.
Bisztriczky introduced the multiplex as a generalization of the simplex. A polytope is multiplicial if all its faces are multiplexes. In this paper it is proved that the flag vectors of multiplicial polytopes depend only on their face vectors. A special class of multiplicial polytopes, also discovered by Bisztriczky, is comprised of the ordinary polytopes. These are a natural generalization of the cyclic polytopes. The flag vectors of ordinary polytopes are determined. This is used to give a surprisingly simple formula for the h-vector of the ordinary d-polytope with n+1 vertices and character…
We consider unimodality and related properties of f-vectors of polytopes in various dimensions. By a result of Kalai (1988), f-vectors of 5-polytopes are unimodal. In higher dimensions much less can be said; we give an overview on current results and present a potentially interesting construction as well as a conjecture arising from this.
What is the minimal closed cone containing all $f$-vectors of cubical $d$-polytopes? We construct cubical polytopes showing that this cone, expressed in the cubical $g$-vector coordinates, contains the nonnegative $g$-orthant, thus verifying one direction of the Cubical Generalized Lower Bound Conjecture of Babson, Billera and Chan. Our polytopes also show that a natural cubical analogue of the simplicial Generalized Lower Bound Theorem does not hold.
A $δ$-vector $δ(\Pc)= (δ_0, δ_1, ..., δ_d)$ is called shifted symmetric if $δ_{d-i} = δ_{i+1}$ for each $0 \leq i \leq [(d-1)/2]$. A natural family of $(0,1)$-polytopes with shifted symmetric $δ$-vectors will be studied.
We show that h*-vectors of alcoved polytopes P in R^n (of Lie type A) are unimodal if they contain interior lattice points and their facets have lattice distance 1 to the set of interior lattice points. The maximal possible such distance for general alcoved polytopes is shown to be dim(P)-1. A secondary purpose of the paper is to serve as a guide to previous work surrounding unimodality of h*-vectors of alcoved polytopes and related questions.
Let P be a convex polytope containing the origin, whose dual is a lattice polytope. Hibi's Palindromic Theorem tells us that if P is also a lattice polytope then the Ehrhart $δ$-vector of P is palindromic. Perhaps less well-known is that a similar result holds when P is rational. We present an elementary lattice-point proof of this fact.
McMullen's g-vector is important for simple convex polytopes. This paper postulates axioms for its extension to general convex polytopes. It also conjectures that, for each dimension d, a stated finite calculation gives the formula for the extended g-vector. This calculation is done by computer for d=5 and the results analysed. The conjectures imply new linear inequalities on convex polytope flag vectors. Underlying the axioms is a hypothesised higher-order homology extension to middle perversity intersection homology (order-zero homology), which measures the failure of lower-order homology to…
An \emph{interval vector} is a $(0,1)$-vector in $\mathbb{R}^n$ for which all the 1's appear consecutively, and an \emph{interval-vector polytope} is the convex hull of a set of interval vectors in $\mathbb{R}^n$. We study three particular classes of interval vector polytopes which exhibit interesting geometric-combinatorial structures; e.g., one class has volumes equal to the Catalan numbers, whereas another class has face numbers given by the Pascal 3-triangle.
The convex hulls of face-vertex incident vectors of 3-face-colorable convex polytopes are computed. It is found that every such convex hull is a $d$-polytope with $d+2$ or $d+3$ vertices. Utilizing Gale transform and Gale diagram, we calculate its combinatorial structure. Finally, a necessary and sufficient criterion for combinatorial equivalence of two such convex hulls is given.
We describe a construction for d-polytopes generalising the well known stacking operation. The construction is applied to produce 2-simplicial and 2-simple 4-polytopes with g_2=0 on any number of n >= 13 vertices. In particular, this implies that the ray l_1, described by Bayer (1987), is fully contained in the convex hull of all flag vectors of 4-polytopes. Especially interesting examples on 9, 10 and 11 vertices are presented.
In this paper, we investigate two properties concerning the unimodality of the $δ$-vectors of lattice polytopes, which are log-concavity and alternatingly increasingness. For lattice polytopes $\mathcal{P}$ of dimension $d$, we prove that the dilated lattice polytopes $n\mathcal{P}$ have strictly log-concave and strictly alternatingly increasing $δ$-vectors if $n > \max\{s,d+1-s\}$, where $s$ is the degree of the $δ$-polynomial of $\mathcal{P}$. The bound $\max\{s,d+1-s\}$ for $n$ is reasonable. We also provide several kinds of unimodal (or non-unimodal) $δ$-vectors. Concretely, we give exampl…
The objective of this paper is to present two types of results on Minkowski sums of convex polytopes. The first is about a special class of polytopes we call perfectly centered and the combinatorial properties of the Minkowski sum with their own dual. In particular, we have a characterization of face lattice of the sum in terms of the face lattice of a given perfectly centered polytope. Exact face counting formulas are then obtained for perfectly centered simplices and hypercubes. The second type of results concerns tight upper bounds for the f-vectors of Minkowski sums of several polytopes.
This note defines a complete h-vector for convex polytopes, which extends the already known toric (or mpih) h-vector and has many similar properties. Complete means that it encodes the whole of the flag vector. First we define the concept of a generalised h-vector and state some properties that follow. The toric h-vector is given as an example. We then define a complete generalised h-vector, and again state properties. Finally, we show that this complete h-vector and all with similar properties will sometimes have negative coefficients. Most of the proofs, and further investigations, will appe…
Given a finite set of vectors spanning a lattice and lying in a halfspace of a real vector space, to each vector $a$ in this vector space one can associate a polytope consisting of nonnegative linear combinations of the vectors in the set which sum up to $a$. This polytope is called the partition polytope of $a$. If $a$ is integral, this polytope contains a finite set of lattice points corresponding to nonnegative integral linear combinations. The partition polytope associated to an integral $a$ is a rational convex polytope, and any rational convex polytope can be realized canonically as a pa…
In Ehrhart theory, the $h^*$-vector of a rational polytope often provide insights into properties of the polytope that may be otherwise obscured. As an example, the Birkhoff polytope, also known as the polytope of real doubly-stochastic matrices, has a unimodal $h^*$-vector, but when even small modifications are made to the polytope, the same property can be very difficult to prove. In this paper, we examine the $h^*$-vectors of a class of polytopes containing real doubly-stochastic symmetric matrices.
We completely characterize the first two entries, namely the $(f_0, f_1)$-vector pairs, for $6$-dimension polytopes. We also find the characterization for $7$-dimension polytopes with excess degree greater than $11$ and, we conjecture bounds fulfilled by $(f_0, f_1)$-vector pairs for any $d$-polytope having an excess degree greater than $3d-10$.
Ordinary polytopes were introduced by Bisztriczky as a (nonsimplicial) generalization of cyclic polytopes. We show that the colex order of facets of the ordinary polytope is a shelling order. This shelling shares many nice properties with the shellings of simplicial polytopes. We also give a shallow triangulation of the ordinary polytope, and show how the shelling and the triangulation are used to compute the toric h-vector of the ordinary polytope. As one consequence, we get that the contribution from each shelling component to the h-vector is nonnegative. Another consequence is a combinatori…
A basic combinatorial invariant of a convex polytope $P$ is its $f$-vector $f(P)=(f_0,f_1,\dots,f_{\dim P-1})$, where $f_i$ is the number of $i$-dimensional faces of $P$. Steinitz characterized all possible $f$-vectors of $3$-polytopes and Grünbaum characterized the pairs given by the first two entries of the $f$-vectors of $4$-polytopes. In this paper, we characterize the pairs given by the first two entries of the $f$-vectors of $5$-polytopes. The same result was also proved by Pineda-Villavicencio, Ugon and Yost independently.
Let $f_i(P)$ denote the number of $i$-dimensional faces of a convex polytope $P$. Furthermore, let $S(n,d)$ and $C(n,d)$ denote, respectively, the stacked and the cyclic $d$-dimensional polytopes on $n$ vertices. Our main result is that for every simplicial $d$-polytope $P$, if $$ f_r(S(n_1,d))\le f_r(P) \le f_r(C(n_2,d)) $$ for some integers $n_1, n_2$ and $r$, then $$ f_s(S(n_1,d))\le f_s(P) \le f_s(C(n_2,d)) $$ for all $s$ such that $r<s$. For $r=0$ these inequalities are the well-known lower and upper bound theorems for simplicial polytopes. The result is implied by a certain ``comparison …
It is a famous open question whether every integrally closed reflexive polytope has a unimodal Ehrhart delta-vector. We generalize this question to arbitrary integrally closed lattice polytopes and we prove unimodality for the delta-vector of lattice parallelepipeds. This is the first nontrivial class of integrally closed polytopes. Moreover, we suggest a new approach to the problem for reflexive polytopes via triangulations.
Bisztriczky defines a multiplex as a generalization of a simplex, and an ordinary polytope as a generalization of a cyclic polytope. This paper presents results concerning the combinatorics of multiplexes and ordinary polytopes. The flag vector of the multiplex is computed, and shown to equal the flag vector of a many-folded pyramid over a polygon. Multiplexes, but not other ordinary polytopes, are shown to be elementary. It is shown that all complete subgraphs of the graph of a multiplex determine faces of the multiplex. The toric h-vectors of the ordinary 5-dimensional polytopes are given. G…
Although the Unimodality Conjecture holds for some certain classes of cubical polytopes (e.g. cubes, capped cubical polytopes, neighborly cubical polytopes), it fails for cubical polytopes in general. A 12-dimensional cubical polytope with non-unimodal face vector is constructed by using capping operations over a neighborly cubical polytope with 2 to the power 131 vertices. For cubical polytopes, the Unimodality Conjecture is proved for dimensions less than 11. The first one-third of the face vector of a cubical polytope is increasing and its last one-third is decreasing in any dimension.
For any flag simplicial complex $Θ$ obtained by stellar subdividing the boundary of the cross polytope in edges, we define a flag simplicial complex $Γ(Θ)$ (dependent on the sequence of subdivisions) whose $f$-vector is the $γ$-vector of $Θ$. This proves that the $γ$-vector of any such simplicial complex satisfies the Frankl-Füredi-Kalai inequalities, partially solving a conjecture by Nevo and Petersen \cite{np}. We show that when $Θ$ is the dual simplicial complex to a nestohedron, and the sequence of subdivisions corresponds to a flag ordering as defined in \cite{ai}, that $Γ(Θ)$ is equal to…
A complete classification of the $δ$-vectors of lattice polytopes whose normalized volumes are at most $4$ is known. In the present paper, we will classify all the $δ$-vectors of lattice polytopes with normalized volumes $5$.
Using a ribbon structure of the graph, we construct a dissection of the symmetric edge polytope of a graph into unimodular simplices. Our dissection is shellable, and one can interpret the elements of the resulting $h$-vector via graph theory. This gives an elementary method for computing the $h^*$-vector of the symmetric edge polytope.
For a positive integer n and a subset S of [n-1], the descent polytope DP_S is the set of points x_1, ..., x_n in the n-dimensional unit cube [0,1]^n such that x_i >= x_{i+1} for i in S and x_i <= x_{i+1} otherwise. First, we express the f-vector of DP_S as a sum over all subsets of [n-1]. Second, we use certain factorizations of the associated word over a two-letter alphabet to describe the f-vector. We show that the f-vector is maximized when the set S is the alternating set {1,3,5, ...}. We derive a generating function for the f-polynomial F_S(t) of DP_S, written as a formal power series in…
We show that the $f$-vector sets of $d$-polytopes have non-trivial additive structure: They span affine lattices and are embedded in monoids that we describe explicitly. Moreover, for many large subclasses, such as the simple polytopes, or the simplicial polytopes, there are monoid structures on the set of $f$-vectors by themselves: "addition of $f$-vectors minus the $f$-vector of the $d$-simplex" always yields a new $f$-vector. For general $4$-polytopes, we show that the modified addition operation does not always produce an $f$-vector, but that the result is always close to an $f$-vector. In…
The fractional stable set polytope ${\rm FRAC}(G)$ of a simple graph $G$ with $d$ vertices is a rational polytope that is the set of nonnegative vectors $(x_1,\ldots,x_d)$ satisfying $x_i+x_j\le 1$ for every edge $(i,j)$ of $G$. In this paper we show that (i) The $δ$-vector of a lattice polytope $2 {\rm FRAC}(G)$ is alternatingly increasing; (ii) The Ehrhart ring of ${\rm FRAC}(G)$ is Gorenstein; (iii) The coefficients of the numerator of the Ehrhart series of ${\rm FRAC}(G)$ are symmetric, unimodal and computed by the $δ$-vector of $2 {\rm FRAC}(G)$.
A result of Haglund implies that the $(q,t)$-bigraded Hilbert series of the space of diagonal harmonics is a $(q,t)$-Ehrhart function of the flow polytope of a complete graph with netflow vector $(-n, 1, \dots, 1)$. We study the $(q,t)$-Ehrhart functions of flow polytopes of threshold graphs with arbitrary netflow vectors. Our results generalize previously known specializations of the mentioned bigraded Hilbert series at $t=1$, $0$, and $q^{-1}$. As a corollary to our results, we obtain a proof of a conjecture of Armstrong, Garsia, Haglund, Rhoades and Sagan about the $(q, q^{-1})$-Ehrhart fun…
The Chan-Robbins-Yuen polytope can be thought of as the flow polytope of the complete graph with netflow vector $(1, 0, \ldots, 0, -1)$. The normalized volume of the Chan-Robbins-Yuen polytope equals the product of consecutive Catalan numbers, yet there is no combinatorial proof of this fact. We consider a natural generalization of this polytope, namely, the flow polytope of the complete graph with netflow vector $(1,1, 0, \ldots, 0, -2)$. We show that the volume of this polytope is a certain power of $2$ times the product of consecutive Catalan numbers. Our proof uses constant term identities…
We give a simple construction of an orthogonal basis for the space of m by n matrices with row and column sums equal to zero. This vector space corresponds to the affine space naturally associated with the Birkhoff polytope, contingency tables and Latin squares. We also provide orthogonal bases for the spaces underlying magic squares and Sudoku boards. Our construction combines the outer (i.e., tensor or dyadic) product on vectors with certain rooted, vector-labeled, binary trees. Our bases naturally respect the decomposition of a vector space into centrosymmetric and skew-centrosymmetric piec…
We obtain computational hardness results for f-vectors of polytopes by exhibiting reductions of the problems DIVISOR and SEMI-PRIME TESTABILITY to problems on f-vectors of polytopes. Further, we show that the corresponding problems for f-vectors of simplicial polytopes are polytime solvable. The regime where we prove this computational difference (conditioned on standard conjectures on the density of primes and on $P\neq NP$) is when the dimension $d$ tends to infinity and the number of facets is linear in $d$.
The cut polytope of a graph arises in many fields. Although much is known about facets of the cut polytope of the complete graph, very little is known for general graphs. The study of Bell inequalities in quantum information science requires knowledge of the facets of the cut polytope of the complete bipartite graph or, more generally, the complete k-partite graph. Lifting is a central tool to prove certain inequalities are facet inducing for the cut polytope. In this paper we introduce a lifting operation, named triangular elimination, applicable to the cut polytope of a wide range of graphs.…
Neighborly cubical polytopes are known as the cubical analogues of the cyclic polytopes. Using the short cubical $h$-vectors of cubical polytopes (introduced by Adin), we derive an explicit formula for the face numbers of the neighborly cubical polytopes. These face numbers form a unimodal sequence.
Through tropical normal idempotent matrices, we introduce isocanted alcoved polytopes, computing their $f$--vectors and checking the validity of the following five conjectures: Bárány, unimodality, $3^d$, flag and cubical lower bound (CLBC). Isocanted alcoved polytopes are centrally symmetric, almost simple cubical polytopes. They are zonotopes. We show that, for each dimension, there is a unique combinatorial type. In dimension $d$, an isocanted alcoved polytope has $2^{d+1}-2$ vertices, its face lattice is the lattice of proper subsets of $[d+1]$ and its diameter is $d+1$. They are realizati…
The profile vector of a family $\mathcal{F}$ of subsets of an $n$-element set is $(f_0,f_1, \ldots, f_n)$ where $f_i$ denotes the number of the $i$-element members of $\mathcal{F}$. In this paper we determine the extreme points of the set of profile vectors for the class of non-trivial intersecting families.
We define an extension of the toric (middle perversity intersection homology) $g$-vector of a convex polytope $X$. The extended $g(X)$ encodes the whole of the flag vector $f(X)$ of $X$, and so is called complete. We find that for many examples that $g_k(X)\geq 0$ for most $k$ (independent of $X$).
These lecture notes treat some current aspects of two closely interrelated topics from the theory of convex polytopes: the shapes of f-vectors, and extremal constructions. The first lecture treats 3-dimensional polytopes; it includes a complete proof of the Koebe--Andreev--Thurston theorem, using the variational principle by Bobenko & Springborn (2004). In Lecture 2 we look at f-vector shapes of very high-dimensional polytopes. The third lecture explains a surprisingly simple construction for 2-simple 2-simplicial 4-polytopes, which have symmetric f-vectors. Lecture 4 sketches the geometry of …
This paper continues investigation of the class of flag simple polytopes called 2-truncated cubes. It is an extended version of the short note Volodin (2012). A 2-truncated cube is a polytope obtained from a cube by sequence of truncations of codimension 2 faces. Constructed uniquely defined function which maps any 2-truncated cube to a flag simplicial complex with $f$-vector equal to $γ$-vector of the polytope. As a corollary we obtain that $γ$-vectors of 2-truncated cubes satisfy Frankl-Furedi-Kalai inequalities.
An interesting open problem in Ehrhart theory is to classify those lattice polytopes having a unimodal $h^*$-vector. Although various sufficient conditions have been found, necessary conditions remain a challenge. In this paper, we consider integrally closed reflexive simplices and discuss an operation that preserves reflexivity, integral closure, and unimodality of the $h^*$-vector, providing one explanation for why unimodality occurs in this setting. We also discuss the failure of proving unimodality in this setting using weak Lefschetz elements.
We study the Ehrhart theory of quadratic irrational polytopes that undergo vector dilations. That is, for a given polytope with vertices in $\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{D})$, and a different dilation factor for each facet, we show that the leading term of the lattice-point count behaves similar to an Ehrhart polynomial, generalizing previous work of Borda on scalar dilations of quadratic irrational polytopes. As a result, a form of the Ehrhart-Macdonald reciprocity law is obtained for the leading term.
Let P be a lattice polytope with $h^*$-vector $(1, h^*_1, h^*_2)$. In this note we show that if $h_2^* \leq h_1^*$, then $P$ is IDP. More generally, we show the corresponding statements for semi-standard graded Cohen-Macaulay domains over algebraically closed fields.
We prove tight lower bounds for the coefficients of the generalized $h$-vector of a rational polytope with a symmetry of prime order that is fixed--point--free on the boundary. These bounds generalize results of R.~Stanley and R.~Adin for the $h$--vector of a simplicial rational polytope with a central symmetry or a symmetry of prime order respectively.
