Stanley's non-negativity theorem is at the heart of many of the results in Ehrhart theory. In this paper, we analyze the root behavior of general polynomials satisfying the conditions of Stanley's theorem and compare this to the known root behavior of Ehrhart polynomials. We provide a possible counterexample to a conjecture of the second author, M. Beck, J. De Loera, J. Pfeifle, and R. Stanley, and contribute some experimental data as well.
This expository paper features a few highlights of Richard Stanley's extensive work in Ehrhart theory, the study of integer-point enumeration in rational polyhedra. We include results from the recent literature building on Stanley's work, as well as several open problems.
We say a polytope is Ehrhart positive if all the coefficients in its Ehrhart polynomial are positive. Answering an Ehrhart positivity question posed on Mathoverflow, Stanley provided an example of a non-Ehrhart-positive order polytope of dimension $21$. Stanley's example comes from a certain family of order polytopes. In this paper, we study the Ehrhart positivity question on this family of polytopes. By giving explicit formulas for the coefficients of the Ehrhart polynomials of these polytopes in terms of Bernolli numbers, we determine the sign of each Ehrhart coefficient of each polytope in …
It is proved that a certain symmetric sequence of nonnegative integers arising in the enumeration of magic squares of given size n by row sums or, equivalently, in the generating function of the Ehrhart polynomial of the polytope of doubly stochastic n by n matrices, is equal to the h-vector of a simplicial polytope and hence that it satisfies the conditions of the g-theorem. The unimodality of this sequance, which follows, was conjectured by Stanley (1983). Several generalizations are given.
A characteristic polynomial is an important invariant in the field of hyperplane arrangement. For the Linial arrangement of any irreducible root system, Postnikov and Stanley conjectured that all roots of the characteristic polynomial have the same real part. In relation to this conjecture, Yoshinaga obtained an explicit relationship between the characteristic quasi-polynomial and the Ehrhart quasi-polynomial for the fundamental alcove. In this paper, we calculate Yoshinaga's explicit formula through the decomposition of the Ehrhart quasi-polynomial into several quasi-polynomials and a modifie…
It is known that the normalized volume of standard hypersimplices (defined as some slices of the unit hypercube) are the Eulerian numbers. More generally, a recent conjecture of Stanley relates the Ehrhart series of hypersimplices with descents and excedences in permutations. This conjecture was proved by Nan Li, who also gave a generalization to colored permutations. In this article, we give another generalization to colored permutations, using the flag statistics introduced by Foata and Han. We obtain in particular a new proof of Stanley's conjecture, and some combinatorial identities relati…
M. Beck, J. De Loera, M. Develin, J. Pfeifle and R. Stanley found that the roots of the Ehrhart polynomial of a d-dimensional lattice polytope are bounded above in norm by 1+(d+1)!. We provide an improved bound which is quadratic in d and applies to a larger family of polynomials.
We consider the Ehrhart polynomial of hypersimplices. It is proved that these polynomials have positive coefficients and we give a combinatorial formula for each of them. This settles a problem posed by Stanley and also proves that uniform matroids are Ehrhart positive, an important and yet unsolved particular case of a conjecture posed by De Loera et al. To this end, we introduce a new family of numbers that we call weighted Lah numbers and study some of their properties.
Steingrimsson (2001) showed that the chromatic polynomial of a graph is the Hilbert function of a relative Stanley-Reisner ideal. We approach this result from the point of view of Ehrhart theory and give a sufficient criterion for when the Ehrhart polynomial of a given relative polytopal complex is a Hilbert function in Steingrimsson's sense. We use this result to establish that the modular and integral flow and tension polynomials of a graph are Hilbert functions.
We prove the unimodality of the Ehrhart $δ$-polynomial of the chain polytope of the zig-zag poset, which was conjectured by Kirillov. First, based on a result due to Stanley, we show that this polynomial coincides with the $W$-polynomial for the zig-zag poset with some natural labeling. Then, its unimodality immediately follows from a result of Gasharov, which states that the $W$-polynomials of naturally labeled graded posets of rank $1$ or $2$ are unimodal.
In these notes, we explain residue formulae for volumes of convex polytopes, and for Ehrahrt polynomials based on the notion of total residue. We apply this method to the computation of the volume of the Chan-Robbins polytope. The final computation is based on a total residue formula for the system $A_n$, similar to Morris identity. For flow polytopes, a formula of change of variables in total residues leads to a "nice formula" for Ehrhart polynomials in function of mixed volumes. We apply it to Pitman-Stanley polytope.
Given an oriented graph G, the modular flow polynomial counts the number of nowhere-zero Z_k-flows of G. We give a description of the modular flow polynomial in terms of (open) Ehrhart polynomials of lattice polytopes. Using Ehrhart-Macdonald reciprocity we give a combinatorial interpretation for the values of the modular flow polynomial at negative arguments which answers a question of Beck and Zaslavsky (2006). Our construction extends to Z_l-tensions and we recover Stanley's reciprocity theorem for the chromatic polynomial. Combining the combinatorial reciprocity statements for flows and te…
We consider a formula of Stanley that expresses the Ehrhart generating polynomial of a polyhedral complex in terms of the h-polynomials of toric varieties. We prove that the coefficients in this expression are all non-negative and show that these coefficients can be found using the decomposition theorem in intersection cohomology.
For any lattice polytope $P$, we consider an associated polynomial $\barδ_{P}(t)$ and describe its decomposition into a sum of two polynomials satisfying certain symmetry conditions. As a consequence, we improve upon known inequalities satisfied by the coefficients of the Ehrhart $δ$-vector of a lattice polytope. We also provide combinatorial proofs of two results of Stanley that were previously established using techniques from commutative algebra. Finally, we give a necessary numerical criterion for the existence of a regular unimodular lattice triangulation of the boundary of a lattice poly…
We give a short, self-contained proof of Stanley's reciprocity theorem for a rational cone K \subset R^d. Namely, let sigma_K (x) = sum_{m \in K \cap Z^d} x^m. Then sigma_K (x) and sigma_int(K) (x) are rational functions which satisfy the identity sigma_K (1/x) = (-1)^d sigma_int(K) (x). A corollary of Stanley's theorem is the Ehrhart-Macdonald reciprocity theorem for the lattice-point enumerator of rational polytopes. A distinguishing feature of our proof is that it uses neither the shelling of a polyhedron nor the concept of finite additive measures. The proof follows from elementary techniq…
We describe an algorithm for the computation of generalized (or weighted) Ehrhart series based on Stanley decompositions as implemented in the offspring NmzIntegrate of Normaliz. The algorithmic approach includes elementary proofs of the basic results. we illustrate the computations by examples from combinatorial voting theory.
We give new proofs of three theorems of Stanley on generating functions for the integer points in rational cones. The first, Stanley's reciprocity theorem, relates the rational generating functions for the integer points in a cone K and for those in its interior. The second, Stanley's Positivity theorem asserts that the generating function of the Ehrhart quasipolynomial of a rational polytope P can be written as a rational function with nonnegative numerator. The third, Stanley's Monotonicity Theorem, asserts that if a polytope Q contains P, then each coefficient in the numerator for Q is at l…
In a recent paper, Cristofaro-Gardiner--Li--Stanley [CGLS15] constructed examples of irrational triangles whose Ehrhart functions (i.e. lattice-point count) are polynomials when restricted to positive integer dilation factors. This is very surprising because the Ehrhart functions of rational polygons are usually only quasi-polynomials. We demonstrate that most of their triangles can also be obtained by a simple cut-and-paste procedure that allows us to build new examples with more sides. Our examples might potentially have applications in the theory of symplectic embeddings.
The Ehrhart polynomial $L_P$ of an integral polytope $P$ counts the number of integer points in integral dilates of $P$. Ehrhart polynomials of polytopes are often described in terms of their Ehrhart $h^*$-vector (aka Ehrhart $δ$-vector), which is the vector of coefficients of $L_P$ with respect to a certain binomial basis and which coincides with the $h$-vector of a regular unimodular triangulation of $P$ (if one exists). One important result by Stanley about $h^*$-vectors of polytopes is that their entries are always non-negative. However, recent combinatorial applications of Ehrhart theory …
University of Kentucky（肯塔基大学）；Pomona College（波莫纳学院）；Washington University in St. Louis（华盛顿大学圣路易斯分校）；University of California, Davis（加州大学戴维斯分校）；Harvey Mudd College（哈维穆德学院）
There are natural polynomial invariants of polytopes and lattice polytopes coming from enumerative combinatorics and Ehrhart theory, namely the $h$- and $h^*$-polynomials, respectively. In this paper, we study their generalization to subdivisions and lattice subdivisions of polytopes. By abstracting constructions in mixed Hodge theory, we introduce multivariable polynomials which specialize to the $h$-, $h^*$- polynomials. These polynomials, the mixed $h$-polynomial and the (refined) limit mixed $h^*$-polynomial have rich symmetry, non-negativity, and unimodality properties, which both refine …
R. P. Stanley proved the Upper Bound Conjecture in 1975. We imitate his proof for the Ehrhart rings. We give some upper bounds for the volume of integrally closed lattice polytopes. We derive some inequalities for the delta-vector of integrally closed lattice polytopes. Finally we apply our results for reflexive integrally closed and order polytopes.
We show that the Ehrhart h-vector of an integer Gorenstein polytope with a regular unimodular triangulation satisfies McMullen's g-theorem; in particular, it is unimodal. This result generalizes a recent theorem of Athanasiadis (conjectured by Stanley) for compressed polytopes. It is derived from a more general theorem on Gorenstein affine normal monoids M: one can factor K[M] (K a field) by a "long" regular sequence in such a way that the quotient is still a normal affine monoid algebra. This technique reduces all questions about the Ehrhart h-vector of P to the Ehrhart h-vector of a Gorenste…
The Ehrhart polynomial of a lattice polytope $P$ encodes information about the number of integer lattice points in positive integral dilates of $P$. The $h^\ast$-polynomial of $P$ is the numerator polynomial of the generating function of its Ehrhart polynomial. A zonotope is any projection of a higher dimensional cube. We give a combinatorial description of the $h^\ast$-polynomial of a lattice zonotope in terms of refined descent statistics of permutations and prove that the $h^\ast$-polynomial of every lattice zonotope has only real roots and therefore unimodal coefficients. Furthermore, we p…
Richard Stanley introduced the order polytope $\mathcal{O}(P)$ and the chain polytope $\mathcal{C}(P)$ arising from a finite partially ordered set $P$, and showed that the Ehrhart polynomial of $\mathcal{O}(P)$ is equal to that of $\mathcal{C}(P)$. In addition, the unimodular equivalence problem of $\mathcal{O}(P)$ and $\mathcal{C}(P)$ was studied by the first author and Nan Li. In the present paper, three integral convex polytopes $Γ(\mathcal{O}(P), -\mathcal{O}(Q))$, $Γ(\mathcal{O}(P), -\mathcal{C}(Q))$ and $Γ(\mathcal{C}(P), -\mathcal{C}(Q))$, where $P$ and $Q$ are partially ordered sets wi…
