The n'th Birkhoff polytope is the set of all doubly stochastic n-by-n matrices, that is, those matrices with nonnegative real coefficients in which every row and column sums to one. A wide open problem concerns the volumes of these polytopes, which have been known for n up to 8. We present a new, complex-analytic way to compute the Ehrhart polynomial of the Birkhoff polytope, that is, the function counting the integer points in the dilated polytope. One reason to be interested in this counting function is that the leading term of the Ehrhart polynomial is--up to a trivial factor--the volume of the polytope. We implemented our methods in form of a computer program, which yielded the Ehrhart polynomial (and hence the volume) of the ninth Birkhoff polytope.
We say a polytope is Ehrhart positive if all the coefficients in its Ehrhart polynomial are positive. Answering an Ehrhart positivity question posed on Mathoverflow, Stanley provided an example of a non-Ehrhart-positive order polytope of dimension $21$. Stanley's example comes from a certain family of order polytopes. In this paper, we study the Ehrhart positivity question on this family of polytopes. By giving explicit formulas for the coefficients of the Ehrhart polynomials of these polytopes in terms of Bernolli numbers, we determine the sign of each Ehrhart coefficient of each polytope in …
The Ehrhart polynomial of an integral convex polytope counts the number of lattice points in dilates of the polytope. In math.CO/0402148, the authors conjectured that for any cyclic polytope with integral parameters, the Ehrhart polynomial of it is equal to its volume plus the Ehrhart polynomial of its lower envelope and proved the case when the dimension d = 2. In our article, we prove the conjecture for any dimension.
We give a new definition of lattice-face polytopes by removing an unnecessary restriction in the paper "Ehrhart polynomials of lattice-face polytopes", and show that with the new definition, the Ehrhart polynomial of a lattice-face polytope still has the property that each coefficient is the normalized volume of a projection of the original polytope. Furthermore, we show that the new family of lattice-face polytopes contains all possible combinatorial types of rational polytopes.
A seminal result of E. Ehrhart states that the number of integer lattice points in the dilation of a rational polytope by a positive integer $k$ is a quasi-polynomial function of $k$ --- that is, a "polynomial" in which the coefficients are themselves periodic functions of $k$. Using a result of F. Liu on the Ehrhart polynomials of cyclic polytopes, we construct not-necessarily-convex rational polytopes of arbitrary dimension in which the periods of the coefficient functions appearing in the Ehrhart quasi-polynomial take on arbitrary values.
Ehrhart discovered that the function that counts the number of lattice points in dilations of an integral polytope is a polynomial. We call the coefficients of this polynomial Ehrhart coefficients, and say a polytope is Ehrhart positive if all Ehrhart coefficients are positive (which is not true for all integral polytopes). The main purpose of this article is to survey interesting families of polytopes that are known to be Ehrhart positive and discuss the reasons from which their Ehrhart positivity follows. We also include examples of polytopes that have negative Ehrhart coefficients and polyt…
In this paper, we study the Ehrhart polynomial of the dual of the root polytope of type C of dimension $d$, denoted by $C_d^*$. We prove that the roots of the Ehrhart polynomial of $C_d^*$ have the same real part $-1/2$, and we also prove that the Ehrhart polynomials of $C_d^*$ for $d=1,2,\cdots$ has the interlacing property.
We investigate properties of Ehrhart polynomials for matroid polytopes, independence matroid polytopes, and polymatroids. In the first half of the paper we prove that for fixed rank their Ehrhart polynomials are computable in polynomial time. The proof relies on the geometry of these polytopes as well as a new refined analysis of the evaluation of Todd polynomials. In the second half we discuss two conjectures about the h^*-vector and the coefficients of Ehrhart polynomials of matroid polytopes; we provide theoretical and computational evidence for their validity.
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.
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 $5$.
We extend to Barvinok's valuations the Euler-Maclaurin expansion formula which we obtained previously for the sum of values of a polynomial over the integral points of a rational polytope. This leads to an improvement of Barvinok's polynomial type algorithm for computing the highest coefficients of the corresponding Ehrhart quasi-polynomial.
The symmetric edge polytopes of odd cycles (del Pezzo polytopes) are known as smooth Fano polytopes. In this paper, we show that if the length of the cycle is 127, then the Ehrhart polynomial has a root whose real part is greater than the dimension. As a result, we have a smooth Fano polytope that is a counterexample to the two conjectures on the roots of Ehrhart polynomials.
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 given lattice polytope, two fundamental problems within the field of Ehrhart theory are to (1) determine if its (Ehrhart) $h^\ast$-polynomial is unimodal and (2) to determine if its Ehrhart polynomial has only positive coefficients. The former property of a lattice polytope is known as Ehrhart unimodality and the latter property is known as Ehrhart positivity. These two properties are often simultaneously conjectured to hold for interesting families of lattice polytopes, yet they are typically studied in parallel. As to answer a question posed at the 2017 Introductory Workshop to the MSR…
In these notes, we explain residue formulae for volumes of convex polytopes, and for Ehrahrt polynomials based on the notion of total residue. We apply this method to the computation of the volume of the Chan-Robbins polytope. The final computation is based on a total residue formula for the system $A_n$, similar to Morris identity. For flow polytopes, a formula of change of variables in total residues leads to a "nice formula" for Ehrhart polynomials in function of mixed volumes. We apply it to Pitman-Stanley polytope.
We show that if two lattice $3$-polytopes $P$ and $P'$ have the same Ehrhart function then they are $\operatorname{GL}_3({\mathbb Z})$-equidecomposable; that is, they can be partitioned into relatively open simplices $U_1,\dots, U_k$ and $U'_1,\dots,U'_k$ such that $U_i$ and $U'_i$ are unimodularly equivalent, for each $i$.
There is a simple formula for the Ehrhart polynomial of a cyclic polytope. The purpose of this paper is to show that the same formula holds for a more general class of polytopes, lattice-face polytopes. We develop a way of decomposing any d-dimensional simplex in general position into d! signed sets, each of which corresponds to a permutation in the symmetric group, and reduce the problem of counting lattice points in a polytope in general position to that of counting lattice points in these special signed sets. Applying this decomposition to a lattice-face simplex, we obtain signed sets with …
A polytope is integral if all of its vertices are lattice points. The constant term of the Ehrhart polynomial of an integral polytope is known to be 1. In previous work, we showed that the coefficients of the Ehrhart polynomial of a lattice-face polytope are volumes of projections of the polytope. We generalize both results by introducing a notion of $k$-integral polytopes, where 0-integral is equivalent to integral. We show that the Ehrhart polynomial of a $k$-integral polytope $P$ has the properties that the coefficients in degrees less than or equal to $k$ are determined by a projection of …
V. Golyshev conjectured that for any smooth polytope P of dimension at most five, the roots $z\in\C$ of the Ehrhart polynomial for P have real part equal to -1/2. An elementary proof is given, and in each dimension the roots are described explicitly. We also present examples which demonstrate that this result cannot be extended to dimension six.
It is proved that a certain symmetric sequence of nonnegative integers arising in the enumeration of magic squares of given size n by row sums or, equivalently, in the generating function of the Ehrhart polynomial of the polytope of doubly stochastic n by n matrices, is equal to the h-vector of a simplicial polytope and hence that it satisfies the conditions of the g-theorem. The unimodality of this sequance, which follows, was conjectured by Stanley (1983). Several generalizations are given.
The Ehrhart polynomial of a convex lattice polytope counts integer points in integral dilates of the polytope. We present new linear inequalities satisfied by the coefficients of Ehrhart polynomials and relate them to known inequalities. We also investigate the roots of Ehrhart polynomials. We prove that for fixed d, there exists a bounded region of C containing all roots of Ehrhart polynomials of d-polytopes, and that all real roots of these polynomials lie in [-d, [d/2]). In contrast, we prove that when the dimension d is not fixed the positive real roots can be arbitrarily large. We finish …
In this paper we investigate the number of integer points lying in dilations of lattice path matroid polytopes. We give a characterization of such points as polygonal paths in the diagram of the lattice path matroid. Furthermore, we prove that lattice path matroid polytopes are affinely equivalent to a family of distributive polytopes. As applications we obtain two new infinite families of matroids verifying a conjecture of De Loera et.~al. and present an explicit formula of the Ehrhart polynomial for one of them.
It was observed by Bump et al. that Ehrhart polynomials in a special family exhibit properties similar to the Riemann ζ function. The construction was generalized by Matsui et al. to a larger family of reflexive polytopes coming from graphs. We prove several conjectures confirming when such polynomials have zeros on a certain line in the complex plane. Our main new method is to prove a stronger property called interlacing.
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.
Several polytopes arise from finite graphs. For edge and symmetric edge polytopes, in particular, exhaustive computation of the Ehrhart polynomials not merely supports the conjecture of Beck {\it et al.}\ that all roots $α$ of Ehrhart polynomials of polytopes of dimension $D$ satisfy $-D \le \Re(α) \le D - 1$, but also reveals some interesting phenomena for each type of polytope. Here we present two new conjectures: (1) the roots of the Ehrhart polynomial of an edge polytope for a complete multipartite graph of order $d$ lie in the circle $|z+\tfrac{d}{4}| \le \tfrac{d}{4}$ or are negative int…
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 $2 {\rm FRAC}(G)$.
Ehrhart polynomials are extensively-studied structures that interpolate the discrete volume of the dilations of integral $n$-polytopes. The coefficients of Ehrhart polynomials, however, are still not fully understood, and it is not known when two polytopes have equivalent Ehrhart polynomials. In this paper, we establish a relationship between Ehrhart-equivalence and other forms of equivalence: the $\operatorname{GL}_n(\mathbb{Z})$-equidecomposability and unimodular equivalence of two integral $n$-polytopes in $\mathbb{R}^n$. We conjecture that any two Ehrhart-equivalent integral $n$-polytopes …
In this paper we investigate the Ehrhart Theory of the independence matroid polytope of uniform matroids. It is proved that these polytopes have an Ehrhart polynomial with positive coefficients. To do that, we prove that indeed all half-open-hypersimplices are Ehrhart positive, and tile disjointly our polytope using them.
The Lidskii formula for the type $A_n$ root system expresses the volume and Ehrhart polynomial of the flow polytope of the complete graph with nonnegative integer netflows in terms of Kostant partition functions. For every integer polytope the volume is the leading coefficient of the Ehrhart polynomial. The beauty of the Lidskii formula is the revelation that for these polytopes its Ehrhart polynomial function can be deduced from its volume function! Baldoni and Vergne generalized Lidskii's result for flow polytopes of arbitrary graphs $G$ and nonnegative integer netflows. While their formulas…
We prove the unimodality of the Ehrhart $δ$-polynomial of the chain polytope of the zig-zag poset, which was conjectured by Kirillov. First, based on a result due to Stanley, we show that this polynomial coincides with the $W$-polynomial for the zig-zag poset with some natural labeling. Then, its unimodality immediately follows from a result of Gasharov, which states that the $W$-polynomials of naturally labeled graded posets of rank $1$ or $2$ are unimodal.
In a previous paper (El. J. Combin. 6 (1999), R37), the author generalized Ehrhart's idea of counting lattice points in dilated rational polytopes: Given a rational polytope, that is, a polytope with rational vertices, we use its description as the intersection of halfspaces, which determine the facets of the polytope. Instead of just a single dilation factor, we allow different dilation factors for each of these facets. We proved that, if our polytope is a simplex, the lattice point counts in the interior and closure of such a vector-dilated simplex are quasipolynomials satisfying an Ehrhart-…
When extending the Ehrhart lattice point enumerator $L_P(t)$ to allow real dilation parameters $t$, we lose the invariance under integer translations that exists when $t$ is restricted to be an integer. This paper studies this phenomenon; in particular, it is shown that, for full-dimensional $P$, not only there are infinitely many different functions $L_{P + w}(t)$ (for integer $w$), but that for rational $P$ the collection of these functions identifies $P$ uniquely.
Given arbitrary integers $k$ and $d$ with $0 \leq 2k \leq d$, we construct a Gorenstein Fano polytope $\Pc \subset \RR^d$ of dimension $d$ such that (i) its Ehrhart polynomial $i(\Pc, n)$ possesses $d$ distinct roots; (ii) $i(\Pc, n)$ possesses exactly $2k$ imaginary roots; (iii) $i(\Pc, n)$ possesses exactly $d - 2k$ real roots; (iv) the real part of each of the imaginary roots is equal to $- 1 / 2$; (v) all of the real roots belong to the open interval $(-1, 0)$.
The Baldoni--Vergne volume and Ehrhart polynomial formulas for flow polytopes are significant in at least two ways. On one hand, these formulas are in terms of Kostant partition functions, connecting flow polytopes to this classical vector partition function fundamental in representation theory. On the other hand the Ehrhart polynomials can be read off from the volume functions of flow polytopes. The latter is remarkable since the leading term of the Ehrhart polynomial of an integer polytope is its volume! Baldoni and Vergne proved these formulas via residues. To reveal the geometry of these f…
If $P\subset \R^d$ is a rational polytope, then $i_P(n):=#(nP\cap \Z^d)$ is a quasi-polynomial in $n$, called the Ehrhart quasi-polynomial of $P$. The period of $i_P(n)$ must divide $\LL(P)= \min \{n \in \Z_{> 0} \colon nP \text{is an integral polytope}\}$. Few examples are known where the period is not exactly $\LL(P)$. We show that for any $\LL$, there is a 2-dimensional triangle $P$ such that $\LL(P)=\LL$ but such that the period of $i_P(n)$ is 1, that is, $i_P(n)$ is a polynomial in $n$. We also characterize all polygons $P$ such that $i_P(n)$ is a polynomial. In addition, we provide a cou…
In this paper, we study the root distributions of Ehrhart polynomials of free sums of certain reflexive polytopes. We investigate cases where the roots of the Ehrhart polynomials of the free sums of $A_d^\vee$'s or $A_d$'s lie on the canonical line $\mathrm{Re}(z)=-\frac{1}{2}$ on the complex plane $\mathbb{C}$, where $A_d$ denotes the root polytope of type A of dimension $d$ and $A_d^\vee$ denotes its polar dual. For example, it is proved that $A_m^\vee \oplus A_n^\vee$ with $\min\{m,n\} \leq 1$ or $m+n \leq 7$, $A_2^\vee \oplus (A_1^\vee)^{\oplus n}$ and $A_3^\vee \oplus (A_1^\vee)^{\oplus n…
Equivariant Ehrhart theory generalizes the study of lattice point enumeration to also account for the symmetries of a polytope under a linear group action. We present a catalogue of techniques with applications in this field, including zonotopal decompositions, symmetric triangulations, combinatorial interpretation of the $h^\ast$-polynomial, and certificates for the (non)existence of invariant non-degenerate hypersurfaces. We apply these methods to several families of examples including hypersimplices, orbit polytopes, and graphic zonotopes, expanding the library of polytopes for which their …
In a previous paper, we showed how to use the Ehrhart function $L_P(s)$, defined by $L_P(s) = \#(sP \cap \mathbb Z^d)$, to reconstruct a polytope $P$. More specifically, we showed that, for rational polytopes $P$ and $Q$, if $L_{P + w}(s) = L_{Q + w}(s)$ for all integer vectors $w$, then $P = Q$. In this paper we show the same result, but assuming that $P$ and $Q$ are symmetric convex bodies instead of rational polytopes.
We use machine learning to predict the dimension of a lattice polytope directly from its Ehrhart series. This is highly effective, achieving almost 100% accuracy. We also use machine learning to recover the volume of a lattice polytope from its Ehrhart series, and to recover the dimension, volume, and quasi-period of a rational polytope from its Ehrhart series. In each case we achieve very high accuracy, and we propose mathematical explanations for why this should be so.
We introduce the definition of an Ehrhart limit, that is, a formal power series with integer coefficients that is the limit in the ring of formal power series of a sequence of Ehrhart $h^*$-polynomials. We identify a variety of examples of sequences of polytopes that yield Ehrhart limits, with a focus on reflexive polytopes and simplices.
A rational polytope is the convex hull of a finite set of points in $\R^d$ with rational coordinates. Given a rational polytope $P \subseteq \R^d$, Ehrhart proved that, for $t\in\Z_{\ge 0}$, the function $#(tP \cap \Z^d)$ agrees with a quasi-polynomial $L_P(t)$, called the Ehrhart quasi-polynomial. The Ehrhart quasi-polynomial can be regarded as a discrete version of the volume of a polytope. We use that analogy to derive a new proof of Ehrhart's theorem. This proof also allows us to quickly prove two other facts about Ehrhart quasi-polynomials: McMullen's theorem about the periodicity of the …
For $\ba \in \R_{\geq 0}^{n}$, the Tesler polytope $\tes_{n}(\ba)$ is the set of upper triangular matrices with non-negative entries whose hook sum vector is $\ba$. Motivated by a conjecture of Morales', we study the questions of whether the coefficients of the Ehrhart polynomial of $\tes_n(1,1,\dots,1)$ are positive. We attack this problem by studying a certain function constructed by Berline-Vergne and its values on faces of a unimodularly equivalent copy of $\tes_n(1,1,\dots,1).$ We develop a method of obtaining the dot products appeared in formulas for computing Berline-Vergne's function d…
