Let K be a convex body in $R^d$. A random polytope is the convex hull $[x_1,...,x_n]$ of finitely many points chosen at random in K. $\Bbb E(K,n)$ is the expectation of the volume of a random polytope of n randomly chosen points. I. Bárány showed that we have for convex bodies with $C^3$ boundary and everywhere positive curvature
$$ c(d)\lim_{n \to \infty} \frac {vol_d(K)-\Bbb E(K,n)}{(\frac{vol_d(K)}{n})^{\frac{2}{d+1}}} =\int_{\partial K} κ(x)^{\frac{1}{d+1}}dμ(x) $$
where $κ(x)$ denotes the Gauß-Kronecker curvature. We show that the same formula holds for all convex bodies if $κ(x)$ denotes the generalized Gauß-Kronecker curvature.
Recently, K.-Y. Wu introduced affine subspace concentration conditions for the cone volumes of polytopes and proved that the cone volumes of centered, reflexive, smooth lattice polytopes satisfy these conditions. We extend the result to arbitrary centered polytopes.
A classification of SL$(n)$ invariant valuations on the space of convex polytopes in $R^n$ without any continuity assumptions is established. A corresponding result is obtained on the space of convex polytopes in $R^n$ that contain the origin.
A question related to some conjectures of Lutwak about the affine quermassintegrals of a convex body $K$ in ${\mathbb R}^n$ asks whether for every convex body $K$ in ${\mathbb R}^n$ and all $1\leqslant k\leqslant n$ $$Φ_{[k]}(K):={\rm vol}_n(K)^{-\frac{1}{n}}\left (\int_{G_{n,k}}{\rm vol}_k(P_F(K))^{-n}\,dν_{n,k}(F)\right )^{-\frac{1}{kn}}\leqslant c\sqrt{n/k},$$ where $c>0$ is an absolute constant. We provide an affirmative answer for some broad classes of random polytopes. We also discuss upper bounds for $Φ_{[k]}(K)$ when $K=B_1^n$, the unit ball of $\ell_1^n$, and explain how this special …
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…
A perfect prismatoid is a convex polytope $P$ such that for every its facet $F$ the set $vert(P) \setminus vert(F)$ belongs to a supporting hyperplane $α\parallel F$. We prove that every perfect prismatoid is affinely equivalent to some $0/1$-polytope of the same dimension. (And therefore every perfect prismatoid is a lattice polytope.) Moreover, we prove that every perfect prismatoid is a lattice Delaunay polytope.
The classical Cauchy rigidity theorem for convex polytopes reads that if two convex polytopes have isometric developments then they are congruent. In other words, we can decide whether two polyhedra are isometric or not by using their developments only. In this article, we study a similar problem about whether it is possible, using only the developments of two convex polyhedra of Euclidean 3-space, to understand that these polyhedra are (or are not) affine-equivalent.
A parallelotope is a polytope whose translation copies fill space without gaps and intersections by interior points. Voronoi conjectured that each parallelotope is an affine image of the Dirichlet domain of a lattice, which is a Voronoi polytope. We give several properties of a parallelotope and prove that each of them is equivalent to it is an affine image of a Voronoi polytope.
Several general mixed affine surface areas are introduced. We prove some important properties, such as, affine invariance, for these general mixed affine surface areas. We also establish new Alexandrov-Fenchel type inequalities, Santaló-type inequalities, and affine isoperimetric inequalities for these general mixed affine surface areas.
We show that the $f$-vector sets of $d$-polytopes have non-trivial additive structure: They span affine lattices and are embedded in monoids that we describe explicitly. Moreover, for many large subclasses, such as the simple polytopes, or the simplicial polytopes, there are monoid structures on the set of $f$-vectors by themselves: "addition of $f$-vectors minus the $f$-vector of the $d$-simplex" always yields a new $f$-vector. For general $4$-polytopes, we show that the modified addition operation does not always produce an $f$-vector, but that the result is always close to an $f$-vector. In…
In (the surface of) a convex polytope P^3 in R^4, an area-minimizing surface avoids the vertices of P and crosses the edges orthogonally. In a smooth Riemannian manifold M with a group of isometries G, an area-minimizing G-invariant oriented hypersurface is smooth (except for a very small singular set in high dimensions). Already in 3D, area-minimizing G-invariant unoriented surfaces can have certain singularities, such as three orthogonal sheets meeting at a point. We also treat other categories of surfaces such as rectifiable currents modulo nu and soap films.
We give geometric interpretations of certain affine invariants of convex bodies. The affine invariants are the p-affine surface areas introduced by Lutwak. The geometric interpretations involve generalizations of the Santaló-bodies introduced by the authors in a previous paper.
Let $G$ be a finite group acting linearly on a vector space $V$. We consider the linear symmetry groups $\operatorname{GL}(Gv)$ of orbits $Gv\subseteq V$, where the \emph{linear symmetry group} $\operatorname{GL}(S)$ of a subset $S\subseteq V$ is defined as the set of all linear maps of the linear span of $S$ which permute $S$. We assume that $V$ is the linear span of at least one orbit $Gv$. We define a set of \emph{generic points} in $V$, which is Zariski-open in $V$, and show that the groups $\operatorname{GL}(Gv)$ for $v$ generic are all isomorphic, and isomorphic to a subgroup of every sy…
We prove new Alexandrov-Fenchel type inequalities and new affine isoperimetric inequalities for mixed $p$-affine surface areas. We introduce a new class of bodies, the illumination surface bodies, and establish some of their properties. We show, for instance, that they are not necessarily convex. We give geometric interpretations of $L_p$ affine surface areas, mixed $p$-affine surface areas and other functionals via these bodies. The surprising new element is that not necessarily convex bodies provide the tool for these interpretations.
The deviation of a general convex body with twice differentiable boundary and an arbitrarily positioned polytope with a given number of vertices is studied. The paper considers the case where the deviation is measured in terms of the surface areas of the involved sets, more precisely, by what is called the surface area deviation. The proof uses arguments and constructions from probability, convex and integral geometry. The bound is closely related to $p$-affine surface areas.
In this paper, we prove that, if functions (concave) $ϕ$ and (convex) $ψ$ satisfy certain conditions, the $L_ϕ$ affine surface area is monotone increasing, while the $L_ψ$ affine surface area is monotone decreasing under the Steiner symmetrization. Consequently, we can prove related affine isoperimetric inequalities, under certain conditions on $ϕ$ and $ψ$, without assuming that the convex body involved has centroid (or the Santaló point) at the origin.
We prove sharp inequalities for the average number of affine diameters through the points of a convex body $K$ in ${\mathbb R}^n$. These inequalities hold if $K$ is either a polytope or of dimension two. An example shows that the proof given in the latter case does not extend to higher dimensions.
A Delaunay polytope $P$ is said to be {\em extreme} if the only (up to isometries) affine bijective transformations $f$ of $\R^n$, for which $f(P)$ is again a Delaunay polytope, are the homotheties. This notion was introduced in \cite{DGL92}; also some examples in dimension 1, 6, 7, 15, 16, 22, 23 were constructed and it was proved that in dimension less than 6 there are no extreme Delaunay polytopes, except the segment. In this note, for every $n\geq 6$ we build an extreme Delaunay polytope $ED_n$ of dimension $n$.
We prove that for any compact set B in R^d and for any epsilon >0 there is a finite subset X of B of |X|=d^{O(1/epsilon^2)} points such that the maximum absolute value of any linear function ell: R^d --> R on X approximates the maximum absolute value of ell on B within a factor of epsilon sqrt{d}. We also discuss approximations of convex bodies by projections of spectrahedra, that is, by projections of sections of the cone of positive semidefinite matrices by affine subspaces.
We prove the theorem mentioned in the title, for ${\mathbb{R}}^n$, where $n \ge 3$. The case of the simplex was known previously. Also, the case $n=2$ was settled, but there the infimum was some well-defined function of the side lengths. We also consider the cases of spherical and hyperbolic $n$-spaces. There we give some necessary conditions for the existence of a convex polytope with given facet areas, and some partial results about sufficient conditions for the existence of (convex) tetrahedra.
We study the polytopes of affine maps between two polytopes -- the hom-polytopes. The hom-polytope functor has a left adjoint -- tensor product polytopes. The analogy with the category of vector spaces is limited, as we illustrate by a series of explicit examples exhibiting various extremal properties. The main challenge for hom-polytopes is to determine their vertices. A polytopal analogue of the rank-nullity theorem amounts to understanding how the vertex maps behave relative to their surjective and injective factors. This leads to interesting classes of surjective maps. In the last two sect…
Inscribability of polytopes is a classic subject but also a lively research area nowadays. We illustrate this with a selection of well-known results and recent developments on six particular topics related to inscribable polytopes. Along the way we collect a list of (new and old) open questions.
We describe an algorithm for computing the convex hull of a finite collection of points in the affine building of SL_d(K), for K a field with discrete valuation. These convex hulls describe the relations among a finite collection of invertible matrices over K. As a consequence, we bound the dimension of the tropical projective space needed to realize the convex hull as a tropical polytope.
We show by a direct construction that there are at least $\exp\{cV^{(d-1)/(d+1)}\}$ convex lattice polytopes in $\mathbb{R}^d$ of volume $V$ that are different in the sense that none of them can be carried to an other one by a lattice preserving affine transformation. This is achieved by considering the family $\mathcal{P}^d(r)$ (to be defined in the text) of convex lattice polytopes whose volumes are between $0$ and $r^d/d!$. Namely we prove that for $P \in \mathcal{P}^d(r)$, $d!\mathrm{vol\;} P$ takes all possible integer values between $cr^{d-1}$ and $r^d$ where $c>0$ is a constant dependin…
Two families of general affine surface areas are introduced. Basic properties and affine isoperimetric inequalities for these new affine surface areas as well as for $L_ϕ$ affine surface areas are established.
We overview the volume calculations for polyhedra in Euclidean, spherical and hyperbolic spaces. We prove the Sforza formula for the volume of an arbitrary tetrahedron in $H^3$ and $S^3$. We also present some results, which provide a solution for Seidel problem on the volume of non-Euclidean tetrahedron. Finally, we consider a convex hyperbolic quadrilateral inscribed in a circle, horocycle or one branch of equidistant curve. This is a natural hyperbolic analog of the cyclic quadrilateral in the Euclidean plane. We find a few versions of the Brahmagupta formula for the area of such quadrilater…
A conjecture of Fuglede states that a bounded measurable set D, of measure 1, can tile space by translations if and only if the Hilbert space L^2(D) has an orthonormal basis consisting of exponentials exp(i 2 pi lambda x). If D has the latter property it is called spectral. Let D be a polytope with the following property: there is a direction u such that, of all the polytope faces perpendicular to u, the total area of the faces pointing in the positive u direction is more than the total area of the faces pointing in the negative u direction. It is almost obvious that such a polytope D cannot t…
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…
A matroid is a machine capturing linearity of mathematical objects and producing combinatorial structures. Matroid structure arises everywhere since linearity is a ubiquitous concept. One natural way to obtain matroids is by considering hyperplane arrangements, which give rise to convex polytopes called matroid polytopes. Much research has been conducted on these three areas: matroids, matroid polytopes, and hyperplane arrangements. However, substantial gaps in our knowledge remain, and the correspondence diagram between those areas needs to be more extensive. For instance, currently, there is…
