We show that there exist k-neighborly centrally symmetric d-dimensional polytopes with 2(n+d) vertices, where k(d,n)=Theta(d/(1+log ((d+n)/d))). We also show that this bound is tight.
In 1995, Jockusch constructed an infinite family of centrally symmetric $3$-dimensional simplicial spheres that are cs-$2$-neighborly. Here we generalize his construction and show that for all $d\geq 3$ and $n\geq d+1$, there exists a centrally symmetric $d$-dimensional simplicial sphere with $2n$ vertices that is cs-$\lceil d/2\rceil$-neighborly. This result combined with work of Adin and Stanley completely resolves the upper bound problem for centrally symmetric simplicial spheres.
What is the maximum number of vertices that a centrally symmetric 2-neighborly polytope of dimension $d$ can have? It is known that the answer does not exceed $2^d$. Here we provide an explicit construction showing that it is at least $2^{d-1}+2$.
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.
We give a complete enumeration of all 2-neighborly 0/1-polytopes of dimension 7. There are 13 959 358 918 different 0/1-equivalence classes of such polytopes. They form 5 850 402 014 combinatorial classes and 1 274 089 different f-vectors. It enables us to list some of their combinatorial properties. In particular, we have found a 2-neighborly polytope with 14 vertices and 16 facets.
We prove that the neighborly cubical polytopes studied by G"unter M. Ziegler and the first author arise as a special case of neighborly cubical spheres constructed by Babson, Billera, and Chan. By relating the two constructions we obtain an explicit description of a non-polytopal neighborly cubical sphere and, further, a new proof of the fact that the cubical equivelar surfaces of McMullen, Schulz, and Wills can be embedded into R^3.
Neighborly polytopes are those that maximize the number of faces in each dimension among all polytopes with the same number of vertices. Despite their extremal properties they form a surprisingly rich class of polytopes, which has been widely studied and is the subject of many open problems and conjectures. In this paper, we study the enumeration of neighborly polytopes beyond the cases that have been computed so far. To this end, we enumerate neighborly oriented matroids --- a combinatorial abstraction of neighborly polytopes --- of small rank and corank. In particular, if we denote by OM($r,…
We give a complete enumeration of all 2-neighborly $d$-polytopes with $d+9$ and less facets. All of them are realized as 0/1-polytopes, except a 6-polytope $P_{6,10,15}$ with 10 vertices and 15 facets, and pyramids over $P_{6,10,15}$. In particular, we update the lower bounds for the number of facets of a 2-neighborly $d$-polytope $P$ and showed that the number of facets of $P$ is not less than the number of its vertices $f_0(P)$ for $f_0(P) \le d + 10$.
We have found the minimal difference $Δ(k) = \min\limits_P (f_{d-1}(P) - f_{0}(P))$ between the number of facets and the number of vertices of a $k$-neighborly $d$-polytope $P$ for the case $f_{0}(P) = d+3$: $Δ(2) = 4$, $Δ(3) = 15$, and $Δ(k) = 2 (k^2 - 1)$ for $k \ge 4$.
Neighborly cubical polytopes exist: for any $n\ge d\ge 2r+2$, there is a cubical convex d-polytope $C^n_d$ whose $r$-skeleton is combinatorially equivalent to that of the $n$-dimensional cube. This solves a problem of Babson, Billera & Chan. Kalai conjectured that the boundary $\partial C^n_d$ of a neighborly cubical polytope $C^n_d$ maximizes the $f$-vector among all cubical $(d-1)$-spheres with $2^n$ vertices. While we show that this is true for polytopal spheres for $n\le d+1$, we also give a counter-example for $d=4$ and $n=6$. Further, the existence of neighborly cubical polytopes shows t…
In 1995, Josckusch constructed an infinite family of centrally symmetric (cs, for short) triangulations of $3$-spheres that are cs-$2$-neighborly. Recently, Novik and Zheng extended Jockusch's construction: for all $d$ and $n>d$, they constructed a cs triangulation of a $d$-sphere with $2n$ vertices, $Δ^d_n$, that is cs-$\lceil d/2\rceil$-neighborly. Here, several new cs constructions, related to $Δ^d_n$, are provided. It is shown that for all $k>2$ and a sufficiently large $n$, there is another cs triangulation of a $(2k-1)$-sphere with $2n$ vertices that is cs-$k$-neighborly, while for $k=2$…
We give an explicit construction, based on Hadamard matrices, for an infinite series of floor{sqrt{d}/2}-neighborly centrally symmetric d-dimensional polytopes with 4d vertices. This appears to be the best explicit version yet of a recent probabilistic result due to Linial and Novik, who proved the existence of such polytopes with a neighborliness of d/400.
We improve Larman's bound on the diameter of a polytope by showing that if $Δ$ is a normal simplicial complex, all of whose missing faces have size at most $r$, then the diameter of the facet-ridge graph of $Δ$ is not larger than $2^{r-2}n$, where $n$ is the number of vertices of $Δ$. We then use this result to provide new upper bounds on the diameters of the facet-ridge graphs of $k$-neighborly spheres, $r$-stacked spheres, and polytopes with small $g_r$. Specifically, our bounds imply that $r$-stacked spheres with $r=O(\log n)$ satisfy the polynomial Hirsch conjecture.
Let $μ_{\text{2n}}(d,v)$ (respectively, $μ^{\text{s}}_{\text{2n}}(d,v)$) be the minimal number of facets of a (simplicial) 2-neighborly $d$-polytope with $v$ vertices, $v > d \ge 4$. It is known that $μ_{\text{2n}}(4,v) = v (v-3)/2$, $μ_{\text{2n}}(d, d+2) = d+5$, $μ_{\text{2n}}(d,d+3) = d+7$ for $d \ge 5$, and $μ_{\text{2n}}(d,d+4) \in [d+5, d+8]$ for $d \ge 6$. We show that $μ_{\text{2n}}(5, v) = Ω(v^{4/3})$, $μ_{\text{2n}}(6, v) \ge v$, and the equality $μ_{\text{2n}}(6, v) = v$ holds only for a simplex and for a dual 2-neighborly 6-polytope (if it exists) with $v \ge 27$. By using $g$-theo…
In this paper we present a new technique to construct neighborly polytopes, and use it to prove a lower bound of ((r+d)^((r/2+d/2)^2))/(r^((r/2)^2)d^((d/2)^2)e^(3rd/4)) for the number of combinatorial types of vertex-labeled neighborly polytopes in even dimension d with r+d+1 vertices. This improves current bounds on the number of combinatorial types of polytopes. The previous best lower bounds for the number of neighborly polytopes were found by Shemer in 1982 using a technique called the Sewing Construction. We provide a simpler proof that sewing works, and generalize it to oriented matroids…
We present explicit constructions of centrally symmetric 2-neighborly d-dimensional polytopes with about 3^{d/2} = (1.73)^d vertices and of centrally symmetric k-neighborly d-polytopes with about 2^{c_k d} vertices where c_k=3/20 k^2 2^k. Using this result, we construct for a fixed k > 1 and arbitrarily large d and N, a centrally symmetric d-polytope with N vertices that has at least (1-k^2 (gamma_k)^d) binom(N, k) faces of dimension k-1, where gamma_2=1/\sqrt{3} = 0.58 and gamma_k = 2^{-3/{20k^2 2^k}} for k > 2. Another application is a construction of a set of 3^{d/2 -1}-1 points in R^d ever…
We construct a large family of neighborly polytopes that can be realized with all the vertices on the boundary of any smooth strictly convex body. In particular, we show that there are superexponentially many combinatorially distinct neighborly polytopes that admit realizations inscribed on the sphere. These are the first examples of inscribable neighborly polytopes that are not cyclic polytopes, and provide the current best lower bound for the number of combinatorial types of inscribable polytopes (which coincides with the current best lower bound for the number of combinatorial types of poly…
In this note, we prove that every open primary basic semialgebraic set is stably equivalent to the realization space of an even-dimensional neighborly polytope. This in particular provides the final step for Mnëv's proof of the universality theorem for simplicial polytopes.
This thesis presents new applications of Gale duality to the study of polytopes, point configurations and oriented matroids with extremal combinatorial properties. The first part of the thesis explores construction techniques for neighborly polytopes and oriented matroids. First, we provide a new interpretation of Shemer's classical Sewing Construction for neighborly polytopes in terms of lexicographic extensions of oriented matroids. This allows us to provide a simplified proof and to generalize it to oriented matroids in two ways: the Extended Sewing Construction and the Gale Sewing Construc…
Simultaneously generalizing both neighborly and neighborly cubical polytopes, we introduce PSN polytopes: their k-skeleton is combinatorially equivalent to that of a product of r simplices. We construct PSN polytopes by three different methods, the most versatile of which is an extension of Sanyal and Ziegler's "projecting deformed products" construction to products of arbitrary simple polytopes. For general r and k, the lowest dimension we achieve is 2k+r+1. Using topological obstructions similar to those introduced by Sanyal to bound the number of vertices of Minkowski sums, we show that thi…
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.
The aim of this paper is to give a survey of the known results concerning centrally symmetric polytopes, spheres, and manifolds. We further enumerate nearly neighborly centrally symmetric spheres and centrally symmetric products of spheres with dihedral or cyclic symmetry on few vertices, and we present an infinite series of vertex-transitive nearly neighborly centrally symmetric 3-spheres.
We construct, for any positive integer n, a family of n congruent convex polyhedra in R^3, such that every pair intersects in a common facet. Previously, the largest such family contained only eight polytopes. Our polyhedra are Voronoi regions of evenly distributed points on the helix (t, cos t, sin t). With a simple modification, we can ensure that each polyhedron in the family has a point, a line, and a plane of symmetry. We also generalize our construction to higher dimensions and introduce a new family of cyclic polytopes.
The degree of a point configuration is defined as the maximal codimension of its interior faces. This concept is motivated from a corresponding Ehrhart-theoretic notion for lattice polytopes and is related to neighborly polytopes and the generalized lower bound theorem and, by Gale duality, to Tverberg theory. The main results of this paper are a complete classification of point configurations of degree 1, as well as a structure result on point configurations whose degree is less than a third of the dimension. Statements and proofs involve the novel notion of a weak Cayley decomposition, and i…
In this note we investigate under which conditions the dual of the flow polytope (henceforth referred to as the `dual flow polytope') of a quiver is k-neighborly, for generic weights near the canonical weight. We provide a lower bound on k, depending only on the edge connectivity of the underlying graph, for such weights. In the case where the canonical weight is in fact generic, we explicitly determine a vertex presentation of the dual flow polytope. Finally, we specialize our results to the case of complete, bipartite quivers where we show that the canonical weight is indeed generic, and are…
We introduce a deformed product construction for simple polytopes in terms of lower-triangular block matrix representations. We further show how Gale duality can be employed for the construction and for the analysis of deformed products such that specified faces (e.g. all the k-faces) are ``strictly preserved'' under projection. Thus, starting from an arbitrary neighborly simplicial (d-2)-polytope Q on n-1 vertices we construct a deformed n-cube, whose projection to the last dcoordinates yields a neighborly cubical d-polytope. As an extension of thecubical case, we construct matrix representat…
This paper is a survey of recent advances as well as open problems in the study of face numbers of centrally symmetric simplicial polytopes and spheres. The topics discussed range from neighborliness of centrally symmetric polytopes and the upper bound theorem for centrally symmetric simplicial spheres to the generalized lower bound theorem for centrally symmetric simplicial polytopes and the lower bound conjecture for centrally symmetric simplicial spheres and manifolds.
Stanley proved that for any centrally symmetric simplicial $d$-polytope $P$ with $d\geq 3$, $g_2(P) \geq {d \choose 2}-d$. We provide a characterization of centrally symmetric $d$-polytopes with $d\geq 4$ that satisfy this inequality as equality. This gives a natural generalization of the classical Lower Bound Theorem for simplicial polytopes to the setting of centrally symmetric simplicial polytopes.
The Monotone Upper Bound Problem (Klee, 1965) asks if the number M(d,n) of vertices in a monotone path along edges of a d-dimensional polytope with n facets can be as large as conceivably possible: Is M(d,n) = M_{ubt}(d,n), the maximal number of vertices that a d-polytope with n facets can have according to the Upper Bound Theorem? We show that in dimension d=4, the answer is ``yes'', despite the fact that it is ``no'' if we restrict ourselves to the dual-to-cyclic polytopes. For each n>=5, we exhibit a realization of a polar-to-neighborly 4-dimensional polytope with n facets and a Hamilton pa…
We show that by cutting off the vertices and then the edges of neighborly cubical polytopes, one obtains simple 4-dimensional polytopes with n vertices such that all separators of the graph have size at least $Ω(n/\log^{3/2}n)$. This disproves a conjecture by Kalai from 1991/2004.
We study the problem of covering R^d by overlapping translates of a convex body P, such that almost every point of R^d is covered exactly k times. Such a covering of Euclidean space by translations is called a k-tiling. The investigation of tilings (i.e. 1-tilings in this context) by translations began with the work of Fedorov and Minkowski. Here we extend the investigations of Minkowski to k-tilings by proving that if a convex body k-tiles R^d by translations, then it is centrally symmetric, and its facets are also centrally symmetric. These are the analogues of Minkowski's conditions for 1-t…
In this paper, we study the $d$-dimensional rectilinear drawings of the complete $d$-uniform hypergraph $K_{2d}^d$. Anshu et al. [Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications, 2017] used Gale transform and Ham-Sandwich theorem to prove that there exist $Ω\left(2^d\right)$ crossing pairs of hyperedges in such a drawing of $K_{2d}^d$. We improve this lower bound by showing that there exist $Ω\left(2^d \sqrt{ d}\right)$ crossing pairs of hyperedges in a $d$-dimensional rectilinear drawing of $K_{2d}^d$. We also prove the following results. 1. There are $Ω\left(2^d {d^{3/2}}\right)$ crossing pa…
We analyze a remarkable class of centrally symmetric polytopes, the Hansen polytopes of split graphs. We confirm Kalai's 3^d-conjecture for such polytopes (they all have at least 3^d nonempty faces) and show that the Hanner polytopes among them (which have exactly 3^d nonempty faces) correspond to threshold graphs. Our study produces a new family of Hansen polytopes that have only 3^d+16 nonempty faces.
In a previous article, we proved tight lower bounds for the coefficients of the generalized $h$-vector of a centrally symmetric rational polytope using intersection cohomology of the associated projective toric variety. Here we present a new proof based on the theory of combinatorial intersection cohomology developed by Barthel, Brasselet, Fieseler and Kaup. This theory is also valid for nonrational polytopes when there are no corresponding toric varieties. So we can establish our bounds for centrally symmetric polytopes even without requiring them to be rational.
In 1997 Oda conjectured that every smooth lattice polytope has the integer decomposition property. We prove Oda's conjecture for centrally symmetric $3$-dimensional polytopes, by showing they are covered by lattice parallelepipeds and unimodular simplices.
We define a centrally symmetric analogue of the cyclic polytope and study its facial structure. We conjecture that our polytopes provide asymptotically the largest number of faces in all dimensions among all centrally symmetric polytopes with n vertices of a given even dimension d=2k when d is fixed and n grows. For a fixed even dimension d=2k and an integer 0< j <k we prove that the maximum possible number of j-dimensional faces of a centrally symmetric d-dimensional polytope with n vertices is at least (c_j(d)+o(1)) {n \choose j+1} for some c_j(d)>0 and at most (1-2^{-d}+o(1)){n \choose j+1}…
We present explicit constructions of centrally symmetric polytopes with many faces: first, we construct a d-dimensional centrally symmetric polytope P with about (1.316)^d vertices such that every pair of non-antipodal vertices of P spans an edge of P, second, for an integer k>1, we construct a d-dimensional centrally symmetric polytope P of an arbitrarily high dimension d and with an arbitrarily large number N of vertices such that for some 0 < delta_k < 1 at least (1-delta_k^d) {N choose k} k-subsets of the set of vertices span faces of P, and third, for an integer k>1 and a>0, we construct …
We construct infinite families of abstract regular polytopes of type $\{4,p_1,\ldots,p_{n-1}\}$ from extensions of centrally symmetric spherical abstract regular $n$-polytopes. In addition, by applying the halving operation, we obtain infinite families of both locally spherical and locally toroidal regular hypertopes of type $\left\{{p_1 \atop p_1},\ldots,p_{n-1}\right\}$.
We show that there are simple 4-dimensional polytopes with n vertices such that all separators of the graph have size at least $Ω(n/\log n)$. This establishes a strong form of a claim by Thurston, for which the construction and proof had been lost. We construct the polytopes by cutting off the vertices and then the edges of a particular type of neighborly cubical polytopes. The graphs of simple polytopes thus obtained are 4-regular; they contain 3-regular "cube-connected cycle graphs" as minors of spanning subgraphs.
In 1989 Kalai stated the three conjectures A, B, C of increasing strength concerning face numbers of centrally symmetric convex polytopes. The weakest conjecture, A, became known as the ``$3^d$-conjecture''. It is well-known that the three conjectures hold in dimensions d \leq 3. We show that in dimension 4 only conjectures A and B are valid, while conjecture C fails. Furthermore, we show that both conjectures B and C fail in all dimensions d \geq 5.
We derive tight expressions for the maximum number of $k$-faces, $0\le{}k\le{}d-1$, of the Minkowski sum, $P_1\oplus{}P_2$, of two $d$-dimensional convex polytopes $P_1$ and $P_2$, as a function of the number of vertices of the polytopes. For even dimensions $d\ge{}2$, the maximum values are attained when $P_1$ and $P_2$ are cyclic $d$-polytopes with disjoint vertex sets. For odd dimensions $d\ge{}3$, the maximum values are attained when $P_1$ and $P_2$ are $\lfloor\frac{d}{2}\rfloor$-neighborly $d$-polytopes, whose vertex sets are chosen appropriately from two distinct $d$-dimensional moment-…
A Counterexample to Ziegler's Cross-Polytope Conjecture for Simplicial 0/1-Polytopes
Faculty of Mathematics, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg(马格德堡奥托·冯·古里克大学数学学院);Institute of Mathematics, Technische Universität Berlin(柏林工业大学数学研究所);Zuse Institute Berlin(柏林祖斯研究所)
In 1987, Stanley conjectured that if a centrally symmetric Cohen--Macaulay simplicial complex $Δ$ of dimension $d-1$ satisfies $h_i(Δ)=\binom{d}{i}$ for some $i\geq 1$, then $h_j(Δ)=\binom{d}{j}$ for all $j\geq i$. Much more recently, Klee, Nevo, Novik, and Zheng conjectured that if a centrally symmetric simplicial polytope $P$ of dimension $d$ satisfies $g_i(\partial P)=\binom{d}{i}-\binom{d}{i-1}$ for some $d/2\geq i\geq 1$, then $g_j(\partial P)=\binom{d}{j}-\binom{d}{j-1}$ for all $d/2\geq j\geq i$. This note uses stress spaces to prove both of these conjectures.
A centrally symmetric $2d$-vertex combinatorial triangulation of the product of spheres $§^i\times§^{d-2-i}$ is constructed for all pairs of non-negative integers $i$ and $d$ with $0\leq i \leq d-2$. For the case of $i=d-2-i$, the existence of such a triangulation was conjectured by Sparla. The constructed complex admits a vertex-transitive action by a group of order $4d$. The crux of this construction is a definition of a certain full-dimensional subcomplex, $\B(i,d)$, of the boundary complex of the $d$-dimensional cross-polytope. This complex $\B(i,d)$ is a combinatorial manifold with bounda…
A centrally symmetric analogue of the cyclic polytope, the bicyclic polytope, was defined in [BN08]. The bicyclic polytope is defined by the convex hull of finitely many points on the symmetric moment curve where the set of points has a symmetry about the origin. In this paper, we study the Barvinok-Novik orbitope, the convex hull of the symmetric moment curve. It was proven in [BN08] that the orbitope is locally $k$-neighborly, that is, the convex hull of any set of $k$ distinct points on an arc of length not exceeding $ϕ_k$ in $\mathbb{S}^1$ is a $(k-1)$-dimensional face of the orbitope for …
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 …
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.
For $3$-dimensional convex polytopes, inscribability is a classical property that is relatively well-understood due to its relation with Delaunay subdivisions of the plane and hyperbolic geometry. In particular, inscribability can be tested in polynomial time, and for every $f$-vector of $3$-polytopes, there exists an inscribable polytope with that $f$-vector. For higher-dimensional polytopes, much less is known. Of course, for any inscribable polytope, all of its lower-dimensional faces need to be inscribable, but this condition does not appear to be very strong. We observe non-trivial new ob…
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.
We prove that the number of vertices of a polytope of a particular kind is exponentially large in the dimension of the polytope. As a corollary, we prove that an n-dimensional centrally symmetric polytope with O(n) facets has 2^{Omega(n)} vertices and that the number of r-factors in a k-regular graph is exponentially large in the number of vertices of the graph provided k >2r and every cut in the graph with at least two vertices on each side has more than k/r edges.