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 characteristic k: h_i=binom{k-d+i}{i}+(n-k)binom{k-d+i-1}{i-1}, for i at most d/2. In addition, a construction is given for 4-dimensional multiplicial polytopes having two-thirds of their vertices on a single facet, answering a question of Bisztriczky.
In this paper, we study flag structures of matroid base polytopes. We describe faces of matroid base polytopes in terms of matroid data, and give conditions for hyperplane splits of matroid base polytopes. Also, we show how the cd-index of a polytope can be expressed when a polytope is split by a hyperplane, and apply these to the cd-index of a matroid base polytope of a rank 2 matroid.
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.
An abstract polytope is chiral if its automorphism group has two orbits on the flags, such that adjacent flags belong to distinct orbits. There are still few examples of chiral polytopes, and few constructions that can create chiral polytopes with specified properties. In this paper, we show how to build self-dual chiral polytopes using the mixing construction for polytopes.
In the focus of this paper is the operation of edge contraction. One can show that simplicial 3-polytope is flag iff contraction of any its edge gives simplicial 3-polytope. Our main result states that any flag simplicial 3-polytope can be reduced to octahedron by sequence of edge contractions. Using this operation we introduce a partial order on the set of flag simplicial 3-polytopes and study Hasse graph of corresponding poset. We estimate input and output degrees of vertices of this Hasse graph.
An abstract polytope of rank n is said to be chiral if its automorphism group has two orbits on the flags, such that adjacent flags belong to distinct orbits. Examples of chiral polytopes have been difficult to find. A "mixing" construction lets us combine polytopes to build new regular and chiral polytopes. By using the chirality group of a polytope, we are able to give simple criteria for when the mix of two polytopes is chiral.
Given an abstract polytope $\cal P$, its flag graph is the edge-coloured graph whose vertices are the flags of $\cal P$ and the $i$-edges correspond to $i$-adjacent flags. Flag graphs of polytopes are maniplexes. On the other hand, given a maniplex $\cal M$, on can define a poset $\cal P_M$ by means of the non empty intersection of its faces. In this paper we give necessary and sufficient conditions (in terms of graphs) on a maniplex $\cal M$ in order for $\cal P_M$ to be an abstract polytope. Moreover, in such case, we show that $\cal M$ is isomorphic to the flag graph of $\cal P_M$. This in …
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…
The full root polytope of type $A$ is the convex hull of all pairwise differences of the standard basis vectors which we represent by forward and backward arrows. We completely classify all flag triangulations of this polytope that are uniform in the sense that the edges may be described as a function of the relative order of the indices of the four basis vectors involved. These fifteen triangulations fall naturally into three classes: three in the lex class, three in the revlex class and nine in the Simion class. We also consider a refined face count where we distinguish between forward and b…
The orbit graph of a k-orbit polytope is a graph on k nodes that shows how the flag orbits are related by flag adjacency. Using orbit graphs, we classify k-orbit polytopes and determine when a k-orbit polytope is i-transitive. We then provide an explicit classification of three-orbit polytopes, and we describe a generating set for their automorphism groups.
A chiral polytope with Schläfli symbol $\{p_1, \ldots, p_{n-1}\}$ has at least $2p_1 \cdots p_{n-1}$ flags, and it is called \emph{tight} if the number of flags meets this lower bound. The Schläfli symbols of tight chiral polyhedra were classified in an earlier paper, and another paper proved that there are no tight chiral $n$-polytopes with $n \geq 6$. Here we prove that there are no tight chiral $5$-polytopes, describe 11 families of tight chiral $4$-polytopes, and show that every tight chiral $4$-polytope covers a polytope from one of those families.
An abstract polytope of rank n is said to be chiral if its automorphism group has precisely two orbits on the flags, such that adjacent flags belong to distinct orbits. The present paper describes a general method for deriving new finite chiral polytopes from old finite chiral polytopes of the same rank. In particular, the technique is used to construct many new examples in ranks 3, 4 and 5.
Marked chain-order polytopes are convex polytopes constructed from a marked poset, which give a discrete family relating a marked order polytope with a marked chain polytope. In this paper, we consider the Gelfand-Tsetlin poset of type A, and realize the associated marked chain-order polytopes as Newton-Okounkov bodies of the flag variety. Our realization connects previous realizations of Gelfand-Tsetlin polytopes and Feigin-Fourier-Littelmann-Vinberg polytopes as Newton-Okounkov bodies in a uniform way. As an application, we prove that the flag variety degenerates into the irreducible normal …
For a polytope we define the {\em flag polynomial}, a polynomial in commuting variables related to the well-known flag vector and describe how to express the the flag polynomial of the Minkowski sum of $k$ standard simplices in a direct and canonical way in terms of the {\em $k$-th master polytope} $P(k)$ where $k\in\nats$. The flag polynomial facilitates many direct computations. To demonstrate this we provide two examples; we first derive a formula for the $f$-polynomial and the maximum number of $d$-dimensional faces of the Minkowski sum of two simplices. We then compute the maximum discrep…
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…
A simplicial complex $Δ$ is called flag if all minimal nonfaces of $Δ$ have at most two elements. The following are proved: First, if $Δ$ is a flag simplicial pseudomanifold of dimension $d-1$, then the graph of $Δ$ (i) is $(2d-2)$-vertex-connected and (ii) has a subgraph which is a subdivision of the graph of the $d$-dimensional cross-polytope. Second, the $h$-vector of a flag simplicial homology sphere $Δ$ of dimension $d-1$ is minimized when $Δ$ is the boundary complex of the $d$-dimensional cross-polytope.
Grünbaum, Barnette, and Reay in 1974 completed the characterization of the pairs $(f_i,f_j)$ of face numbers of $4$-dimensional polytopes. Here we obtain a complete characterization of the pairs of flag numbers $(f_0,f_{03})$ for $4$-polytopes. Furthermore, we describe the pairs of face numbers $(f_0,f_{d-1})$ for $d$-polytopes; this description is complete for even $d\ge6$ except for finitely many exceptional pairs that are "small" in a well-defined sense, while for odd $d$ we show that there are also "large" exceptional pairs. Our proofs rely on the insight that "small" pairs need to be defi…
We present a first example of a flag vector of a polyhedral sphere that is not the flag vector of any polytope. Namely, there is a unique 3-sphere with the parameters $(f_0,f_1,f_2,f_3;f_{02})=(12,40,40,12;120)$, but this sphere is not realizable by a convex 4-polytope. The 3-sphere, which is 2-simple and 2-simplicial, was found by Werner (2009); we present results of a computer enumeration which imply that the sphere with these parameters is unique. We prove that it is non-polytopal in two ways: First, we show that it has no oriented matroid, and thus it is not realizable; this proof was foun…
In this paper we study the operation of cutting off edges of a simple $3$-polytope $P$ along the graph $Γ$. We give the criterion when the resulting polytope is simple and when it is flag. As a corollary we prove the analog of Eberhard's theorem about the realization of polygon vectors of simple $3$-polytopes for flag polytopes.
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 $d\ge 4$.
We construct a family of flat semitoric degenerations for the Hibi variety of every finite distributive lattice. The irreducible components of each degeneration are the toric varieties associated with polytopes forming a regular subdivision of the order polytope of the underlying poset. These components are themselves Hibi varieties. For each degeneration in our family we also define the corresponding weight polytope and embed the degeneration into the associated toric variety as the union of orbit closures given by a set of faces. Every such weight polytope projects onto the order polytope wi…
We investigate weighted floating bodies of polytopes. We show that the weighted volume depends on the complete flags of the polytope. This connection is obtained by introducing flag simplices, which translate between the metric and combinatorial structure. Our results are applied in spherical and hyperbolic space. This leads to new asymptotic results for polytopes in these spaces. We also provide explicit examples of spherical and hyperbolic convex bodies whose floating bodies behave completely different from any convex body in Euclidean space.
In this paper, we develop a tropical analog of the classical flag variety that we call the flag Dressian. We find relations, which we call "tropical incidence relations", for when one tropical linear space is contained in another, and show that the flag Dressian is a tropical prevariety. In the case of 2-step flag Dressians, which we call "tropical incidence prevarieties", we find an equivalence between points in this space and induced subdivisions of a hypersimplex, generalizing two parts of an equivalence given by D. Speyer for tropical linear spaces. We attempt to generalize the third part …
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.
We introduce the flag-approximability of a convex body to measure how easy it is to approximate by polytopes. We show that the flag-approximability is exactly half the volume entropy of the Hilbert geometry on the body, and that both quantities are maximized when the convex body is a Euclidean ball. We also compute explicitly the asymptotic volume of a convex polytope, which allows us to prove that simplices have the least asymptotic volume.
This paper defines, for each graph $G$, a flag vector $fG$. The flag vectors of the graphs on $n$ vertices span a space whose dimension is $p(n)$, the number of partitions on $n$. The analogy with convex polytopes indicates that the linear inequalities satisfied by $fG$ may be both interesting and accessible. Such would provide inequalities both sharp and subtle on the combinatorial structure of $G$. These may be related to Ramsey theory.
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…
Stanley introduced a lattice polytope $\mathcal{C}_P$ arising from a finite poset $P$, which is called the chain polytope of $P$. The geometric structure of $\mathcal{C}_P$ has good relations with the combinatorial structure of $P$. In particular, the Ehrhart polynomial of $\mathcal{C}_P$ is given by the order polynomial of $P$. In the present paper, associated to $P$, we introduce a lattice polytope $\mathcal{E}_{P}$, which is called the enriched chain polytope of $P$, and investigate geometric and combinatorial properties of this polytope. By virtue of the algebraic technique on Gröbner base…
Minkowski sums of simplices in ${\mathbb{R}}^n$ form an interesting class of polytopes that seem to emerge in various situations. In this paper we discuss the Minkowski sum of the simplices $Δ_{k-1}$ in ${\mathbb{R}}^n$ where $k$ and $n$ are fixed, their flags and some of their face lattice structure. In particular, we derive a closed formula for their {\em exponential generating flag function}. These polytopes are simple, include both the simplex $Δ_{n-1}$ and the permutahedron $Π_{n-1}$, and form a Minkowski basis for more general permutahedra.
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…
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…
We construct a 2-parameter family of 4-dimensional polytopes with extreme combinatorial structure: In this family, the ``fatness'' of the f-vector gets arbitrarily close to 9, the ``complexity'' (given by the flag vector) gets arbitrarily close to 16. The polytopes are obtained from suitable deformed products of even polygons by a projection to four-space.
Nestohedra are a family of convex polytopes that includes permutohedra, associahedra, and graph associahedra. In this paper, we study an extension of such polytopes, called extended nestohedra. We show that these objects are indeed the boundaries of simple polytopes, answering a question of Lam and Pylyavskyy. We also study the duals of (extended) nestohedra, giving a complete characterization of isomorphisms (as simplicial complexes) between the duals of extended nestohedra and a partial characterization of isomorphisms between the duals of nestohedra and extended nestohedra. In addition, we …
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 $X$).
The main goal of this paper is to give explicit descriptions of two maximal cones in the Gröbner fan of the Plücker ideal. These cones correspond to the monomial ideals given by semistandard and PBW-semistandard Young tableaux. For the first cone, as an intermediate result we obtain the description of a maximal cone in the Gröbner fan of any Hibi ideal. For the second, we generalize the notion of Hibi ideals by associating an ideal with every interpolating polytope. This is a family of polytopes that generalizes the order and chain polytopes of a poset (à la Fang--Fourier--Litza--Pegel). We th…
We study some geometric and combinatorial aspects of the solution to the full Kostant-Toda (f-KT) hierarchy, when the initial data is given by an arbitrary point on the totally non-negative (tnn) flag variety of SL_n(R). The f-KT flows on the tnn flag variety are complete, and their asymptotics are completely determined by the cell decomposition of the tnn flag variety given by Rietsch. We define the f-KT flow on the weight space via the moment map, and show that the closure of each f-KT flow forms an interesting convex polytope generalizing the permutohedron which we call a Bruhat interval po…
The flag vector contains all the face incidence data of a polytope, and in the poset setting, the chain enumerative data. It is a classical result due to Bayer and Klapper that for face lattices of polytopes, and more generally, Eulerian graded posets, the flag vector can be written as a cd-index, a non-commutative polynomial which removes all the linear redundancies among the flag vector entries. This result holds for regular CW complexes. We relax the regularity condition to show the cd-index exists for Whitney stratified manifolds by extending the notion of a graded poset to that of a quasi…
In this paper, we discuss f- and flag-vectors of 4-dimensional convex polytopes and cellular 3-spheres. We put forward two crucial parameters of fatness and complexity: Fatness F(P) := (f_1+f_2-20)/(f_0+f_3-10) is large if there are many more edges and 2-faces than there are vertices and facets, while complexity C(P) := (f_{03}-20)/(f_0+f_3-10) is large if every facet has many vertices, and every vertex is in many facets. Recent results suggest that these parameters might allow one to differentiate between the cones of f- or flag-vectors of -- connected Eulerian lattices of length 5 (combinato…
We study a natural generalization of the noncrossing relation between pairs of elements in [n] to k-tuples in [n] that was first considered by Petersen, Pylyavskyy, Speyer (2010). We give an alternative approach to their result that the flag simplicial complex on $\binom{[n]}{k}$ induced by this relation is a regular, unimodular and flag triangulation of the order polytope of the poset given by the product $[k]\times[n-k]$ of two chains (also called Gelfand-Tsetlin polytope), and that it is the join of a simplex and a sphere (that is, it is a Gorenstein triangulation). We then observe that thi…
A Gelfand-Cetlin polytope is a convex polytope obtained as an image of certain completely integrable system on a partial flag variety. In this paper, we give an equivalent description of the face structure of a GC-polytope in terms of so called the face structure of a ladder diagram. Using our description, we obtain a partial differential equation whose solution is the exponential generating function of f-vectors of GC-polytopes. This solves the open problem (2) posed by Gusev, Kritchenko, and Timorin in [GKT].
Regular semisimple Hessenberg varieties are subvarieties of the flag variety $\mathrm{Flag}(\mathbb{C}^n)$ arising naturally in the intersection of geometry, representation theory, and combinatorics. Recent results of Abe-Horiguchi-Masuda-Murai-Sato and Abe-DeDieu-Galetto-Harada relate the volume polynomials of regular semisimple Hessenberg varieties to the volume polynomial of the Gelfand-Zetlin polytope $\mathrm{GZ}(λ)$ for $λ=(λ_1,λ_2,\ldots,λ_n)$. The main results of this manuscript use and generalize tools developed by Anderson-Tymoczko, Kiritchenko-Smirnov-Timorin, and Postnikov, in orde…
The aim of the paper is to calculate face numbers of simple generalized permutohedra, and study their f-, h- and gamma-vectors. These polytopes include permutohedra, associahedra, graph-associahedra, simple graphic zonotopes, nestohedra, and other interesting polytopes. We give several explicit formulas for h-vectors and gamma-vectors involving descent statistics. This includes a combinatorial interpretation for gamma-vectors of a large class of generalized permutohedra which are flag simple polytopes, and confirms for them Gal's conjecture on nonnegativity of gamma-vectors. We calculate expli…
