The paper gives a collection of open problems on abstract polytopes that were either presented at the Polytopes Day in Calgary or motivated by discussions at the preceding Workshop on Convex and Abstract Polytopes at the Banff International Research Station in May 2005.
This article exhibits a 4-dimensional combinatorial polytope that has no antiprism, answering a question posed by Bernt Lindstöm. As a consequence, any realization of this combinatorial polytope has a face that it cannot rest upon without toppling over. To this end, we provide a general method for solving a broad class of realizability problems. Specifically, we show that for any semialgebraic property that faces inherit, the given property holds for some realization of every combinatorial polytope if and only if the property holds from some projective copy of every polytope. The proof uses th…
There are two main thrusts in the theory of regular and chiral polytopes: the abstract, purely combinatorial aspect, and the geometric one of realizations. This brief survey concentrates on the latter. The dimension of a faithful realization of a finite abstract regular polytope in some euclidean space is no smaller than its rank, while that of a chiral polytope must strictly exceed the rank. There are similar restrictions on the dimensions of realizations of regular and chiral apeirotopes. From the viewpoint of realizations in a fixed dimension, the problems are now completely solved in up to…
We introduce fractional realizations of a graph degree sequence and a closely associated convex polytope. Simple graph realizations correspond to a subset of the vertices of this polytope. We describe properties of the polytope vertices and characterize degree sequences for which each polytope vertex corresponds to a simple graph realization. These include the degree sequences of pseudo-split graphs, and we characterize their realizations both in terms of forbidden subgraphs and graph structure.
This thesis explores two specific topics of discrete geometry, the multitriangulations and the polytopal realizations of products, whose connection is the problem of finding polytopal realizations of a given combinatorial structure. A k-triangulation is a maximal set of chords of the convex n-gon such that no k+1 of them mutually cross. We propose a combinatorial and geometric study of multitriangulations based on their stars, which play the same role as triangles of triangulations. This study leads to interpret multitriangulations by duality as pseudoline arrangements with contact points cove…
Results of Koebe (1936), Schramm (1992), and Springborn (2005) yield realizations of $3$-polytopes with edges tangent to the unit sphere. Here we study the algebraic degrees of such realizations. This initiates the research on constrained realization spaces of polytopes.
In this paper we introduce a natural model for the realization space of a polytope up to projective equivalence which we call the slack realization space of the polytope. The model arises from the positive part of an algebraic variety determined by the slack ideal of the polytope. This is a saturated determinantal ideal that encodes the combinatorics of the polytope. We also derive a new model of the realization space of a polytope from the positive part of the variety of a related ideal. The slack ideal offers an effective computational framework for several classical questions about polytope…
We construct an infinite family of 4-polytopes whose realization spaces have dimension smaller or equal to 96. This in particular settles a problem going back to Legendre and Steinitz: whether and how the dimension of the realization space of a polytope is determined/bounded by its f-vector. From this, we derive an infinite family of combinatorially distinct 69-dimensional polytopes whose realization is unique up to projective transformation. This answers a problem posed by Perles and Shephard in the sixties. Moreover, our methods naturally lead to several interesting classes of projectively u…
On the polytope defined in Feigin, Fourier, and Littelmann (2011), associated to any rectangle highest weight, we define a structure of an type $A_n$-crystal. We show, by using the Stembridge axioms, that this crystal is isomorphic to the one obtained from Kashiwara's crystal bases theory. Further we define on this polytope a bijective map and show that this map satisfies the properties of a weak promotion operator. This implies in particular that we provide an explicit realization of Kirillov-Reshetikhin crystals for the affine type $A^{(1)}_n$ via polytopes.
We investigate a family of polytopes introduced by E.M.\ Feichtner, A.\ Postnikov and B.\ Sturmfels, which were named nestohedra. The vertices of these polytopes may intuitively be understood as constructions of hypergraphs. Limit cases in this family of polytopes are, on the one end, simplices, and, on the other end, permutohedra. In between, as notable members one finds associahedra and cyclohedra. The polytopes in this family are investigated here both as abstract polytopes and as realized in Euclidean spaces of all finite dimensions. The later realizations are inspired by J.D.\ Stasheff's …
We consider the realization space of the $d$-dimensional cube, and show that any two realizations are connected by a finite sequence of projective transformations and normal transformations. We use this fact to define an analog of the connected sum construction for cubical $d$-polytopes, and apply this construction to certain cubical $d$-polytopes to conclude that the rays spanned by $f$-vectors of cubical $d$-polytopes are dense in Adin's cone. The connectivity result on cubes extends to any product of simplices, and further, it shows the respective realization spaces are contractible.
The main object in this paper is a certain rational convex polytope whose lattice points give a polyhedral realization of a highest weight crystal basis. This is also identical to a Newton-Okounkov body of a flag variety, and it gives a toric degeneration. In this paper, we prove that a specific class of this polytope is given by Kiritchenko's Demazure operators on polytopes. This implies that polytopes in this class are all lattice polytopes. As an application, we give a sufficient condition for the corresponding toric variety to be Gorenstein Fano.
We prove that every finite group is the automorphism group of a finite abstract polytope isomorphic to a face-to-face tessellation of a sphere by topological copies of convex polytopes. We also show that this abstract polytope may be realized as a convex polytope.
In this paper we examine four different models for the realization space of a polytope: the classical model, the Grassmannian model, the Gale transform model, and the slack variety. Respectively, they identify realizations of the polytopes with the matrix whose columns are the coordinates of their vertices, the column space of said matrix, their Gale transforms, and their slack matrices. Each model has been used to study realizations of polytopes. In this paper we establish very explicitly the maps that allow us to move between models, study their precise relationships, and combine the strengt…
We study finite groups that occur as combinatorial automorphism groups or geometric symmetry groups of convex polytopes. When $Γ$ is a subgroup of the combinatorial automorphism group of a convex $d$-polytope, $d\geq 3$, then there exists a convex $d$-polytope related to the original polytope with combinatorial automorphism group exactly $Γ$. When $Γ$ is a subgroup of the geometric symmetry group of a convex $d$-polytope, $d\geq 3$, then there exists a convex $d$-polytope related to the original polytope with both geometric symmetry group and combinatorial automorphism group exactly $Γ$. These…
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.
In the classical setting, a convex polytope is said to be semiregular if its facets are regular and its symmetry group is transitive on vertices. This paper studies semiregular abstract polytopes, which have abstract regular facets, still with combinatorial automorphism group transitive on vertices. We analyze the structure of the automorphism group, focusing in particular on polytopes with two kinds of regular facets occurring in an "alternating" fashion. In particular we use group amalgamations to prove that given two compatible n-polytopes P and Q, there exists a universal abstract semiregu…
We prove that every primary basic semialgebraic set is homotopy equivalent to the set of inscribed realizations (up to Möbius transformation) of a polytope. If the semialgebraic set is moreover open, then, in addition, we prove that (up to homotopy) it is a retract of the realization space of some inscribed neighborly (and simplicial) polytope. We also show that all algebraic extensions of $\mathbb{Q}$ are needed to coordinatize inscribed polytopes. These statements show that inscribed polytopes exhibit the Mnëv universality phenomenon. Via stereographic projections, these theorems have a dire…
We review three realizations of the associahedron that arise as secondary polytopes, from cluster algebras, and as Minkowski sums of simplices, and show that under any choice of parameters, the resulting associahedra are affinely non-equivalent.
When the standard representation of a crystallographic Coxeter group G (with string diagram) is reduced modulo the integer d>1, one obtains a finite group G^d which is often the automorphism group of an abstract regular polytope. Building on earlier work in the case that d is an odd prime, we here develop methods to handle composite moduli and completely describe the corresponding modular polytopes when G is of spherical or Euclidean type. Using a modular variant of the quotient criterion, we then describe the locally toroidal polytopes provided by our construction, most of which are new.
Any convex polytope whose combinatorial automorphism group has two orbits on the flags is isomorphic to one whose group of Euclidean symmetries has two orbits on the flags (equivalently, to one whose automorphism group and symmetry group coincide.) Hence, a combinatorially two-orbit convex polytope is isomorphic to one of a known finite list, all of which are 3-dimensional: the cuboctahedron, icosidodecahedron, rhombic dodecahedron, or rhombic triacontahedron. The same is true of combinatorially two-orbit normal face-to-face tilings by convex polytopes.
We prove that if G is a string C-group of rank 4 and G is isomorphic to L_2(q) with q a prime power, then q must be 11 or 19. The polytopes arising are Grunbaum's 11-cell of type {3,5,3} for L_2(11) and Coxeter's 57-cell of type {5,3,5} for L_2(19), each a locally projective regular 4-polytope.
When the standard representation of a crystallographic Coxeter group is reduced modulo an odd prime p, one obtains a finite group G^p acting on some orthogonal space over Z_p . If the Coxeter group has a string diagram, then G^p will often be the automorphism group of a finite abstract regular polytope. In parts I and II we established the basics of this construction and enumerated the polytopes associated to groups of rank at most 4, as well as all groups of spherical or Euclidean type. Here we extend the range of our earlier criteria for the polytopality of G^p . Building on this we investig…
The slack ideal of a polytope is a saturated determinantal ideal that gives rise to a new model for the realization space of the polytope. The simplest slack ideals are toric and have connections to projectively unique polytopes. We prove that if a projectively unique polytope has a toric slack ideal, then it is the toric ideal of the bipartite graph of vertex-facet non-incidences of the polytope. The slack ideal of a polytope is contained in this toric ideal if and only if the polytope is morally 2-level, a generalization of the 2-level property in polytopes. We show that polytopes that do no…
We study properties of the realizations of groups as the combinatorial automorphism group of a convex polytope. We show that for any non-abelian group $G$ with a central involution there is a centrally symmetric polytope with $G$ as its combinatorial automorphisms. We show that for each integer $n$, there are groups that cannot be realized as the combinatorial automorphisms of convex polytopes of dimension at most $n$. We also give an optimal lower bound for the dimension of the realization of a group as the group of isometries that preserves a convex polytope.
In this paper, we classify regular polytopes with automorphism groups of order $2^n$ and Schläfli types $\{4, 2^{n-3}\}, \{4, 2^{n-4}\}$ and $\{4, 2^{n-5}\}$ for $n \geq 10$, therefore giving a partial answer to a problem proposed by Schulte and Weiss in [Problems on polytopes, their groups, and realizations, Periodica Math. Hungarica 53(2006) 231-255].
Given a matrix Schubert variety $\overline{X_π}$, it can be written as $\overline{X_π}=Y_π\times \mathbb{C}^q$ (where $q$ is maximal possible). We characterize when $Y_π$ is toric (with respect to a $(\mathbb{C}^*)^{2n-1}$-action) and study the associated polytope $Φ(\mathbb{P}(Y_π))$ of its projectivization. We construct regular triangulations of $Φ(\mathbb{P}(Y_π))$ which we show are geometric realizations of a family of subword complexes. Subword complexes were introduced by Knutson and Miller in 2004, who also showed that they are homeomorphic to balls or spheres and raised the question of…
A concept of generalized regular polytope is introduced in this work. The number of its (1...n-1)-dimensional elements is not necessarily integer, though all the combinatorial and metric properties meet those of regular polytopes in a classic sense. New relationships between Schlafli symbol of the regular polytope and its metric parameters have been established. Using the generalized regular polytopes concept, group and metric properties of arbitrary metric space tessellations into regular honeycombs were investigated. It has been shown that sequential tessellations of space into regular honey…
We classify the convex polytopes whose symmetry groups have two orbits on the flags. These exist only in two or three dimensions, and the only ones whose combinatorial automorphism group is also two-orbit are the cuboctahedron, the icosidodecahedron, and their duals. The combinatorially regular two-orbit convex polytopes are certain 2n-gons for each n > 1. We also classify the face-to-face tilings of Euclidean space by convex polytopes whose symmetry groups have two flag orbits. There are finitely many families, tiling one, two, or three dimensions. The only such tilings which are also combina…
The paper studies modular reduction techniques for abstract regular and chiral polytopes, with two purposes in mind: first, to survey the literature about modular reduction in polytopes; and second, to apply modular reduction, with moduli given by primes in Z[t] (with t=τthe golden ratio), to construct new regular 4-polytopes of hyperbolic types {3,5,3} and {5,3,5} with automorphism groups given by finite orthogonal groups.
A~$k$-associahedron is a simplicial complex whose facets, called~$k$-triangulations, are the inclusion maximal sets of diagonals of a convex polygon where no~$k+1$ diagonals mutually cross. Such complexes are conjectured for about a decade to have realizations as convex polytopes, and therefore as complete simplicial fans. Apart from four one-parameter families including simplices, cyclic polytopes and classical associahedra, only two instances of multiassociahedra have been geometrically realized so far. This paper reports on conjectural realizations for all~$2$-associahedra, obtained by heur…
When the standard representation of a crystallographic Coxeter group $Γ$ is reduced modulo an odd prime $p$, a finite representation in some orthogonal space over $\mathbb{Z}_p$ is obtained. If $Γ$ has a string diagram, the latter group will often be the automorphism group of a finite regular polytope. In Part I we described the basics of this construction and enumerated the polytopes associated with the groups of rank 3 and the groups of spherical or Euclidean type. In this paper, we investigate such families of polytopes for more general choices of $Γ$, including all groups of rank 4. In par…
An orbit polytope is the convex hull of an orbit under a finite group $G \leq \operatorname{GL}(d,\mathbb{R})$. We develop a general theory of possible affine symmetry groups of orbit polytopes. For every group, we define an open and dense set of generic points such that the orbit polytopes of generic points have conjugated affine symmetry groups. We prove that the symmetry group of a generic orbit polytope is again $G$ if $G$ is itself the affine symmetry group of some orbit polytope, or if $G$ is absolutely irreducible. On the other hand, we describe some general cases where the affine symme…
There exists just one regular polytope of rank larger than 3 whose full automorphism group is a projective general linear group PGL_2(q), for some prime-power q. This polytope is the 4-simplex and the corresponding group is PGL_2(5), which is isomorphic to S_5.
Recently Gouveia, Thomas and the authors introduced the slack realization space, a new model for the realization space of a polytope. It represents each polytope by its slack matrix, the matrix obtained by evaluating each facet inequality at each vertex. Unlike the classical model, the slack model naturally mods out projective transformations. It is inherently algebraic, arising as the positive part of a variety of a saturated determinantal ideal, and provides a new computational tool to study classical realizability problems for polytopes. We introduce the package SlackIdeals for Macaulay2, t…
This is a survey on algorithmic questions about combinatorial and geometric properties of convex polytopes. We give a list of 35 problems; for each the current state of knowledege on its theoretical complexity status is reported. The problems are grouped into the sections ``Coordinate Descriptions'', ``Combinatorial Structure'', ``Isomorphism'', ``Optimization'', ``Realizability'', and ``Beyond Polytopes''.
Unlike the situation in the classical theory of convex polytopes, there is a wealth of semi-regular abstract polytopes, including interesting examples exhibiting some unexpected phenomena. We prove that even an equifacetted semi-regular abstract polytope can have an arbitrary large number of flag orbits or face orbits under its combinatorial automorphism group.
There are many open problems and some mysteries connected to the realizations of the associahedra as convex polytopes. In this note, we describe three -- concerning special realizations with the vertices on a sphere, the space of all possible realizations, and possible realizations of the multiassociahedron.
Regular incidence complexes are combinatorial incidence structures generalizing regular convex polytopes, regular complex polytopes, various types of incidence geometries, and many other highly symmetric objects. The special case of abstract regular polytopes has been well-studied. The paper describes the combinatorial structure of a regular incidence complex in terms of a system of distinguished generating subgroups of its automorphism group or a flag-transitive subgroup. Then the groups admitting a flag-transitive action on an incidence complex are characterized as generalized string C-group…
We construct two infinite families of locally toroidal chiral polytopes of type $\{4,4,4\}$, with $1024m^2$ and $2048m^2$ automorphisms for every positive integer $m$, respectively. The automorphism groups of these polytopes are solvable groups, and when $m$ is a power of $2$, they provide examples with automorphism groups of order $2^n$ where $n$ can be any integer greater than $9$. (On the other hand, no chiral polytopes of type $[4,4,4]$ exist for $n \leq 9$.) In particular, our two families give a partial answer to a problem proposed by Schulte and Weiss in [Problems on polytopes, their gr…
We describe many different realizations with integer coordinates for the associahedron (i.e. the Stasheff polytope) and for the cyclohedron (i.e. the Bott-Taubes polytope) and compare them to the permutahedron of type A_n and B_n respectively. The coordinates are obtained by an algorithm which uses an oriented Coxeter graph of type A_n or B_n respectively as only input and which specialises to a procedure presented by J.-L. Loday for a certain orientation of A_n. The described realizations have cambrian fans of type A and B as normal fans. This settles a conjecture of N. Reading for cambrian f…
This note which can be viewed as a complement to Alex Postnikov's paper math.CO/0507163, presents a self-contained overview of basic properties of nested complexes and their two dual polyhedral realizations: as complete simplicial fans, and as simple polytopes. Most of the results are not new; our aim is to bring into focus a striking similarity between nested complexes and associated fans and polytopes on one side, and cluster complexes and generalized associahedra introduced and studied in hep-th/0111053, math.CO/0202004, on the other side.
Given any connected poset $P$, we give a simple realization of Galashin's poset associahedron $\mathscr{A}(P)$ as a convex polytope in $\mathbb{R}^P.$ The realization is inspired by the description of $\mathscr{A}(P)$ as a compactification of the configuration space of order-preserving maps $P \to \mathbb{R}.$ In addition, we give an analogous realization for Galashin's affine poset cyclohedra.
Polytopes are ubiquitous in different areas of mathematics. Gleason and Hubard established a factorisation theorem, stating that every abstract polytope has a unique factorisation into prime polytopes. We compute the automorphism group of a certain family of inductively constructed polytopes using the unique factorisation.
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.
We present a simple algorithm for determining the extremal points in Euclidean space whose convex hull is the nth polytope in the sequence known as the multiplihedra. This answers the open question of whether the multiplihedra could be realized as convex polytopes. We use this realization to unite the approach to A_n-maps of Iwase and Mimura to that of Boardman and Vogt. We include a review of the appearance of the nth multiplihedron for various n in the studies of higher homotopy commutativity, (weak) n-categories, A_infinity-categories, deformation theory, and moduli spaces. We also include …
A real representation of a finite group naturally determines a polytope, generalizing the well-known Birkhoff polytope. This paper determines the structure of the polytope corresponding to the natural permutation representation of a general Frobenius group.
For any given finite group, Schulte and Williams (2015) establish the existence of a convex polytope whose combinatorial automorphisms form a group isomorphic to the given group. We provide here a shorter proof for a stronger result: the convex polytope we build for the given finite group is binary, and even combinatorial in the sense of Naddef and Pulleyblank (1981); the diameter of its skeleton is at most 2; any combinatorial automorphism of the polytope is induced by some isometry of the space; any automorphism of the skeleton is a combinatorial automorphism.
For each prime power $q\geq 5$, we construct a rank four chiral polytope that has a group $PSL(3,q)$ as automorphism group and Schläfli type $\{q-1,\frac{2(q-1)}{(3,q-1)},q-1\}$. We also construct rank five polytopes for some values of $q$ and we show that there is no chiral polytope of rank at least six having a group $PSL(3,q)$ or $PSU(3,q)$ as automorphism group.
For each strongly connected finite-dimensional (pure) simplicial complex we construct a finite group, the group of projectivities of the complex, which is a combinatorial but not a topological invariant. This group is studied for combinatorial manifolds and, in particular, for polytopal simplicial spheres. The results are applied to a coloring problem for simplicial (or, dually, simple) polytopes which arises in the area of toric algebraic varieties.
We compute the set of facets of the polytope which is the convex hull of the Coxeter groups $\mathsf{F}_4$ or $\mathsf{H}_4$: For the group $\mathsf{F}_4$ we found $2$ orbits of facets which contradicts previous results published in \cite{birkhoff}. For the group $\mathsf{H}_4$ we found $1063$ orbits of facets which provides a counterexample to the conjecture of \cite{birkhoff}.
We give a realization of the infinity crystal for affine sl(2) using decorated polygons. The construction and proof are combinatorial, making use of Kashiwara and Saito's characterization of the infinity crystal in terms of the * involution. The polygons we use have combinatorial properties suggesting they are the analogues in this case of the Mirkovic-Vilonen polytopes defined by Anderson and the third author in finite type. Using Kashiwara's similarity of crystals we also give MV polytopes for $A_2^{(2)}$, the only other rank two affine Kac-Moody algebra.
We present a new algorithm to compute all the chiral polytopes that have a given group $G$ as full automorphism group. This algorithm uses a new set of generators that characterize the group, all of them except one being involutions. It permits to compute all chiral polytopes of groups that were previously unreachable by other known algorithms.
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.