The simplex algorithm using the random edge pivot-rule on any realization of a dual cyclic 4-polytope with n facets does not take more than O(n) pivot-steps. This even holds for general abstract objective functions (AOF) / acyclic unique sink orientations (AUSO). The methods can be used to show analogous results for products of two polygons. In contrast, we show that the random facet pivot-rule is slow on dual cyclic 4-polytopes, i.e. there are AUSOs on which random facet takes at least Ω(n^2) steps.
We present new pivot rules for the Simplex method for LPs over 0/1 polytopes. We show that the number of non-degenerate steps taken using these rules is strongly polynomial and even linear in the dimension or in the number of variables. Our bounds on the number of steps are asymptotically optimal on several well-known combinatorial polytopes. Our analysis is based on the geometry of 0/1 polytopes and novel modifications to the classical Steepest-Edge and Shadow-Vertex pivot rules. We draw interesting connections between our pivot rules and other well-known algorithms in combinatorial optimizat…
We prove that the Random-Edge simplex algorithm requires an expected number of at most 13n/sqrt(d) pivot steps on any simple d-polytope with n vertices. This is the first nontrivial upper bound for general polytopes. We also describe a refined analysis that potentially yields much better bounds for specific classes of polytopes. As one application, we show that for combinatorial d-cubes, the trivial upper bound of 2^d on the performance of Random-Edge can asymptotically be improved by any desired polynomial factor in d.
Polytope numbers for a given polytope are an integer sequence defined by the combinatorics of the polytope. Recent work by H. K. Kim and J. Y. Lee has focused on writing polytope number sequences as sums of simplex number sequences. We focus on $r$-rectified simplices and show that the sequences for these polytopes can be written as alternating sums of simplex numbers analogous to the inclusion-exclusion given by the geometric process of $r$-rectification.
Polytope numbers for a polytope are a sequence of nonnegative integers that are defined by the facial information of a polytope. Every polygon is triangulable and a higher dimensional analogue of this fact states that every polytope is triangulable, namely, every polytope can be decomposed into simplexes. Thus it may be possible to represent polytope numbers by sums of simplex numbers. We analyzes a special type of triangulation, called pointed triangulation, and develops several methods to represent polytope numbers by sums of simplex numbers.
Motivated by the problem of bounding the number of iterations of the Simplex algorithm we investigate the possible lengths of monotone paths followed by the Simplex method inside the oriented graphs of polyhedra (oriented by the objective function). We consider both the shortest and the longest monotone paths and estimate the monotone diameter and height of polyhedra. Our analysis applies to transportation polytopes, matroid polytopes, matching polytopes, shortest-path polytopes, and the TSP, among others. We begin by showing that combinatorial cubes have monotone and Bland pivot height bounde…
This dissertation investigates the geometric combinatorics of convex polytopes and connections to the behavior of the simplex method for linear programming. We focus our attention on transportation polytopes, which are sets of all tables of non-negative real numbers satisfying certain summation conditions. Transportation problems are, in many ways, the simplest kind of linear programs and thus have a rich combinatorial structure. First, we give new results on the diameters of certain classes of transportation polytopes and their relation to the Hirsch Conjecture, which asserts that the diamete…
For a polytope P a simplex S with vertex set V(S) is called a special simplex if every facet of P contains all but exactly one vertex of S. For such polytopes P with face complex F(P) containing a special simplex the subcomplex F(P) / V(S) of all faces not containing vertices of S is the boundary of a polytope Q - the basis polytope of P. If additionally the dimension of the affine basis space of F(P) / V(S) equals dim(Q), we call P meek; otherwise we call P wild. We give a full combinatorial classification and techniques for geometric construction of the class of meek polytopes with special s…
We present a polynomial time algorithm to compute any fixed number of the highest coefficients of the Ehrhart quasi-polynomial of a rational simplex. Previously such algorithms were known for integer simplices and for rational polytopes of a fixed dimension. The algorithm is based on the formula relating the kth coefficient of the Ehrhart quasi-polynomial of a rational polytope to volumes of sections of the polytope by affine lattice subspaces parallel to k-dimensional faces of the polytope. We discuss possible extensions and open questions.
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.
Let Z_m^k consist of the m^k alcoves contained in the m-fold dilation of the fundamental alcove of the type A_k affine hyperplane arrangement. As the fundamental alcove has a cyclic symmetry of order (k+1), so does Z_m^k. By bijectively exchanging the natural poset structure of Z_m^k for a natural cyclic action on a set of words, we prove an instance of the cyclic sieving phenomenon.
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.
Cyclic polytopes are characterized as simplicial polytopes satisfying Gale's evenness condition (a combinatorial condition on facets relative to a fixed ordering of the vertices). Periodically-cyclic polytopes are polytopes for which certain subpolytopes are cyclic. Bisztriczky discovered a class of periodically-cyclic polytopes that also satisfy Gale's evenness condition. The faces of these polytopes are braxtopes, a certain class of nonsimplicial polytopes studied by the authors. In this paper we prove that the periodically-cyclic Gale polytopes of Bisztriczky are exactly the polytopes that …
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.
Polytope numbers for a given polytope are an integer sequence defined by the combinatorics of the polytope. Recent work by H. K. Kim and J. Y. Lee has focused on writing polytope number sequences as sums of simplex number sequences. In addition, these works have given a process for writing the polytope number sequence in a recursive fashion by using the interior sequence for the various k-faces of the polytope, each viewed as a k-dimensional polytope. This paper shows that the coefficients of the linear combination of simplex number are the h-vector components for a certain type of triangulati…
Let $d$ and $n$ be positive integers with $n \geq d + 1$ and $τ_{1}, ..., τ_{n}$ integers with $τ_{1} < ... < τ_{n}$. Let $C_{d}(τ_{1}, ..., τ_{n}) \subset \RR^{d}$ denote the cyclic polytope of dimension $d$ with $n$ vertices $(τ_{1},τ_{1}^{2},...,τ_{1}^{d}), ..., (τ_{n},τ_{n}^{2},...,τ_{n}^{d})$. We are interested in finding the smallest integer $γ_{d}$ such that if $τ_{i+1} - τ_{i} \geq γ_{d}$ for $1 \leq i < n$, then $C_{d}(τ_{1}, ..., τ_{n})$ is normal. One of the known results is $γ_{d} \leq d (d + 1)$. In the present paper a new inequality $γ_{d} \leq d^{2} - 1$ is proved. Moreover, it …
There are two related poset structures, the higher Stasheff-Tamari orders, on the set of all triangulations of the cyclic $d$ polytope with $n$ vertices. In this paper it is shown that both of them have the homotopy type of a sphere of dimension $n-d-3$. Moreover, we resolve positively a new special case of the \emph{Generalized Baues Problem}: The Baues poset of all polytopal decompositions of a cyclic polytope of dimension $d \leq 3$ has the homotopy type of a sphere of dimension $n-d-2$.
Over a decade ago, it was shown that every edge unfolding of the Platonic solids was without self-overlap, yielding a valid net. We consider this property for regular polytopes in arbitrary dimensions, notably the simplex, cube, and orthoplex. It was recently proven that all unfoldings of the $n$-cube yield nets. We show this is also true for the $n$-simplex and the $4$-orthoplex but demonstrate its surprising failure for any orthoplex of higher dimension.
In a d-simplex every facet is a (d-1)-simplex. We consider as generalized simplices other combinatorial classes of polytopes, all of whose facets are in the class. Cubes and multiplexes are two such classes of generalized simplices. In this paper we study a new class, braxtopes, which arise as the faces of periodically-cyclic Gale polytopes. We give a geometric construction for these polytopes and various combinatorial properties.
We introduce several classes of polytopes contained in $[0,1]^n$ and cut out by inequalities involving sums of consecutive coordinates. We show that the normalized volumes of these polytopes enumerate circular extensions of certain partial cyclic orders. Among other things this gives a new point of view on a question popularized by Stanley. We also provide a combinatorial interpretation of the Ehrhart $h^*$-polynomials of some of these polytopes in terms of descents of total cyclic orders. The Euler numbers, the Eulerian numbers and the Narayana numbers appear as special cases.
We study the vertices of the polytopes of all affine maps (a.k.a. hom-polytopes) between higher dimensional simplices, cubes, and crosspolytopes. Systematic study of general hom-polytopes was initiated in [3]. The study of such vertices is the classical aspect of a conjectural homological theory of convex polytopes. One quickly runs into open problems even for simple source and target polytopes. The vertices of Hom(simplex_m,-) and Hom(-,cube_n) are easily understood. In this work we describe the vertex sets of Hom(box_m,simplex_n), Hom(diamond_m,simplex_n), and Hom(diamond_m,diamond_n). The e…
In the present paper, we consider the problem when the toric ring arising from an integral cyclic polytope is Cohen-Macaulay by discussing Serre's condition and we give a complete characterization when that is Gorenstein. Moreover, we study the normality of the other semigroup ring arising from an integral cyclic polytope but generated only with its vertices.
The cyclic polytope $C(n,d)$ is the convex hull of any $n$ points on the moment curve ${(t,t^2,...,t^d):t \in \reals}$ in $\reals^d$. For $d' >d$, we consider the fiber polytope (in the sense of Billera and Sturmfels) associated to the natural projection of cyclic polytopes $π: C(n,d') \to C(n,d)$ which "forgets" the last $d'-d$ coordinates. It is known that this fiber polytope has face lattice indexed by the coherent polytopal subdivisions of $C(n,d)$ which are induced by the map $π$. Our main result characterizes the triples $(n,d,d')$ for which the fiber polytope is canonical in either of t…
Given a (finite) simplicial complex, we define its $i$-th Laplacian polytope as the convex hull of the columns of its $i$-th Laplacian matrix. This extends Laplacian simplices of finite simple graphs, as introduced by Braun and Meyer. After studying basic properties of these polytopes, we focus on the $d$-th Laplacian polytope of the boundary of a $(d+1)$-simplex $\partial(σ_{d+1})$. If $d$ is odd, then as for graphs, the $d$-th Laplacian polytope turns out to be a $(d+1)$-simplex in this case. If $d$ is even, we show that the $d$-th Laplacian polytope of $\partial(σ_{d+1})$ is combinatorially…
We report on enumerating the triangulations of cyclic polytopes with the new software mptopcom. This is relevant for its connection with higher Stasheff-Tamari orders, which occur in category theory and algebraic combinatorics.
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-…
We investigate the combinatorics and geometry of permutation polytopes associated to cyclic permutation groups, i.e., the convex hulls of cyclic groups of permutation matrices. We give formulas for their dimension and vertex degree. In the situation that the generator of the group consists of at most two orbits, we can give a complete combinatorial description of the associated permutation polytope. In the case of three orbits the facet structure is already quite complex. For a large class of examples we show that there exist exponentially many facets.
A family of polytopes introduced by E.M. Feichtner, A. Postnikov and B. Sturmfels, which were named nestohedra, consists in each dimension of an interval of polytopes starting with a simplex and ending with a permutohedron. This paper investigates a problem of changing and extending the boundaries of these intervals. An iterative application of Feichtner-Kozlov procedure of forming complexes of nested sets is a solution of this problem. By using a simple algebraic presentation of members of nested sets it is possible to avoid the problem of increasing the complexity of the structure of nested …
We generalize Ehrhart's idea of counting lattice points in dilated rational polytopes: Given a rational simplex, that is, an n-dimensional polytope with n+1 rational vertices, we use its description as the intersection of n+1 halfspaces, which determine the facets of the simplex. Instead of just a single dilation factor, we allow different dilation factors for each of these facets. We give an elementary proof that the lattice point counts in the interior and closure of such a "vector-dilated" simplex are quasipolynomials satisfying an Ehrhart-type reciprocity law. This generalizes the classica…
Factorization into spheres is achieved for skeleta of the simplex, cube, and cross-polytope, both explicitly and using Keevash's proof of existence of designs.
A stacking operation adds a $d$-simplex on top of a facet of a simplicial $d$-polytope while maintaining the convexity of the polytope. A stacked $d$-polytope is a polytope that is obtained from a $d$-simplex and a series of stacking operations. We show that for a fixed $d$ every stacked $d$-polytope with $n$ vertices can be realized with nonnegative integer coordinates. The coordinates are bounded by $O(n^{2\log(2d)})$, except for one axis, where the coordinates are bounded by $O(n^{3\log(2d)})$. The described realization can be computed with an easy algorithm. The realization of the polytope…
We prove a bijection between the triangulations of the 3-dimensional cyclic polytope C(n+2, 3) and persistent graphs with n vertices. We show that under this bijection the Stasheff-Tamari orders on triangulations naturally translate to subgraph inclusion between persistent graphs. Moreover, we describe a connection to the second higher Bruhat order B(n, 2). We additionally give an algorithm to efficiently enumerate all persistent graphs on n vertices and thus all triangulations of C(n+2, 3).
We describe a provably complete algorithm for the generation of a tight, possibly exact superset of all combinatorially distinct simple n-facet polytopes in R^d, along with their graphs, f-vectors, and face lattices. The technique applies repeated cutting planes and planar sweeps to a d-simplex. Our generator has implications for several outstanding problems in polytope theory, including conjectures about the number of distinct polytopes, the edge expansion of polytopal graphs, and the d-step conjecture.
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 investigate the worst-case behavior of the simplex algorithm on linear programs with three variables, that is, on 3-dimensional simple polytopes. Among the pivot rules that we consider, the ``random edge'' rule yields the best asymptotic behavior as well as the most complicated analysis. All other rules turn out to be much easier to study, but also produce worse results: Most of them show essentially worst-possible behavior; this includes both Kalai's ``random-facet'' rule, which without dimension restriction is known to be subexponential, as well as Zadeh's deterministic history dependent …
We study polytopes defined by inequalities of the form $\sum_{i\in I} z_{i}\leq 1$ for $I\subseteq [d]$ and nonnegative $z_i$ where the inequalities can be reordered into a matrix inequality involving a column-convex $\{0,1\}$-matrix. These generalize polytopes studied by Stanley, and the consecutive coordinate polytopes of Ayyer, Josuat-Vergès, and Ramassamy. We prove an integral equivalence between these polytopes and flow polytopes of directed acyclic graphs $G$ with a Hamiltonian path, which we call spinal graphs. We show that the volume of these flow polytopes is the number of extensions …
We study the structure of Stanley-Reisner rings associated to cyclic polytopes, using ideas from unprojection theory. Consider the boundary simplicial complex Delta(d,m) of the d-dimensional cyclic polytope with m vertices. We show how to express the Stanley-Reisner ring of Delta(d,m+1) in terms of the Stanley-Reisner rings of Delta(d,m) and Delta(d-2,m-1). As an application, we use the Kustin-Miller complex construction to identify the minimal graded free resolutions of these rings. In particular, we recover results of Schenzel, Terai and Hibi about their graded Betti numbers.
This paper deals with transportation polytopes in the probability simplex (that is, sets of categorical bivariate probability distributions with prescribed marginals). Information projections between such polytopes are studied, and a sufficient condition is described under which these mappings are homeomorphisms.
We consider the computational problem of finding short paths in the skeleton of the perfect matching polytope of a bipartite graph. We prove that unless $P=NP$, there is no polynomial-time algorithm that computes a path of constant length between two vertices at distance two of the perfect matching polytope of a bipartite graph. Conditioned on $P\neq NP$, this disproves a conjecture by Ito, Kakimura, Kamiyama, Kobayashi and Okamoto [SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics, 36(2), pp. 1102-1123 (2022)]. Assuming the Exponential Time Hypothesis we prove the stronger result that there exists no poly…
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 introduce the property of convex normality of rational polytopes and give a dimensionally uniform lower bound for the edge lattice lengths, guaranteeing the property. As an application, we show that if every edge of a lattice d-polytope P has lattice length at least 4d(d+1) then P is normal. This answers in the positive a question raised in 2007. If P is a lattice simplex whose edges have lattice lengths at least d(d+1) then P is even covered by lattice parallelepipeds. For the approach developed here, it is necessary to involve rational polytopes even for applications to lattice polytopes.
If we fix the angles at the vertices of a convex planar $n$-gon, the lengths of its edges must satisfy two linear constraints in order for it to close up. If we also require unit perimeter, our vectors of $n$ edge lengths form a convex polytope of dimension $n-3$, each facet of which consists of those $n$-gons in which the length of a particular edge has fallen to zero. Bavard and Ghys require unit area instead, which gives them a hyperbolic polytope. Those two polytopes are combinatorially equivalent, so either is fine for our purposes. Such a fixed-angles polytope is combinatorially richer w…
This paper focuses on determining the volumes of permutation polytopes associated to cyclic groups, dihedral groups, groups of automorphisms of tree graphs, and Frobenius groups. We do this through the use of triangulations and the calculation of Ehrhart polynomials. We also present results on the theta body hierarchy of various permutation polytopes.
Circuit-augmentation algorithms are generalizations of the Simplex method, where in each step one is allowed to move along a fixed set of directions, called circuits, that is a superset of the edges of a polytope. We show that in the circuit-augmentation framework the greatest-improvement and Dantzig pivot rules are NP-hard, already for 0/1-LPs. Differently, the steepest-descent pivot rule can be carried out in polynomial time in the 0/1 setting, and the number of circuit augmentations required to reach an optimal solution according to this rule is strongly-polynomial for 0/1-LPs. The number o…
We give an upper bound on the volume vol(P*) of a polytope P* dual to a d-dimensional lattice polytope P with exactly one interior lattice point, in each dimension d. This bound, expressed in terms of the Sylvester sequence, is sharp, and is achieved by the dual to a particular reflexive simplex. Our result implies a sharp upper bound on the volume of a d-dimensional reflexive polytope. Translated into toric geometry, this gives a sharp upper bound on the anti-canonical degree $(-K_X)^d$ of a d-dimensional toric Fano variety X with at worst canonical singularities.
