Ehrhart Series,Unimodality, and Integrally Closed Reflexive Polytopes

An interesting open problem in Ehrhart theory is to classify those lattice polytopes having a unimodal h*-vector. Although various sufficient conditions have been found, necessary conditions remain a challenge. In this paper, we consider integrally closed reflexive simplices and discuss an operation that preserves reflexivity, integral closure, and unimodality of the h*-vector, providing one explanation for why unimodality occurs in this setting. We also discuss the failure of proving unimodality in this setting using weak Lefschetz elements.     

h-Vectors of Gorenstein 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 Gorenstein polytope Q with exactly one interior lattice point, provided each lattice point in a multiple cP, c∈N, can be written as the sum of c lattice points in P. (Up to a translation, the polytope Q belongs to the class of reflexive polytopes considered in connection with mirror symmetry.) If P has a regular unimodular triangulation, then it follows readily that the Ehrhart h-vector of P coincides with the combinatorial h-vector of the boundary complex of a simplicial polytope, and the g-theorem applies.     

Flow polytopes and the graph of reflexive polytopes

We suggest defining the structure of an unoriented graph R_d on the set of reflexive polytopes of a fixed dimension d. The edges are induced by easy mutations of the polytopes to create the possibility of walks along connected components inside this graph. For this, we consider two types of mutations: Those provided by performing duality via nef-partitions, and those arising from varying the lattice. Then for d≤3, we identify the flow polytopes among the reflexive polytopes of each single component of the graph R_d. For this, we present for any dimension d≥2 an explicit finite list of quivers giving all d-dimensional reflexive flow polytopes up to lattice isomorphism. We deduce as an application that any such polytope has at most 6(d−1) facets.     

Lattices generated by skeletons of reflexive polytopes

Lattices generated by lattice points in skeletons of reflexive polytopes are essential in determining the fundamental group and integral cohomology of Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces. Here we prove that the lattice generated by all lattice points in a reflexive polytope is already generated by lattice points in codimension two faces. This answers a question of John Morgan.     

Lifting inequalities for polytopes

We present a method of lifting linear inequalities for the flag f-vector of polytopes to higher dimensions. Known inequalities that can be lifted using this technique are the non-negativity of the toric g-vector and that the simplex minimizes the cd-index. We obtain new inequalities for six-dimensional polytopes. In the last section we present the currently best known inequalities for dimensions 5 through 8.     

Notes on the Roots of Ehrhart Polynomials

We determine lattice polytopes of smallest volume with a given number of interior lattice points. We show that the Ehrhart polynomials of those with one interior lattice point have largest roots with norm of order n², where n is the dimension. This improves on the previously best known bound n and complements a recent result of Braun where it is shown that the norm of a root of a Ehrhart polynomial is at most of order n². For the class of 0-symmetric lattice polytopes we present a conjecture on the smallest volume for a given number of interior lattice points and prove the conjecture for crosspolytopes. We further give a characterisation of the roots of Ehrhart polyomials in the three-dimensional case and we classify for n ≤ 4 all lattice polytopes whose roots of their Ehrhart polynomials have all real part -1/2. These polytopes belong to the class of reflexive polytopes.     

On the variance of random polytopes

A random polytope is the convex hull of uniformly distributed random points in a convex body K. A general lower bound on the variance of the volume and f-vector of random polytopes is proved. Also an upper bound in the case when K is a polytope is given. For polytopes, as for smooth convex bodies, the upper and lower bounds are of the same order of magnitude. The results imply a law of large numbers for the volume and f-vector of random polytopes when K is a polytope.     

Ehrhart Polynomials of Matroid Polytopes and Polymatroids

We investigate properties of Ehrhart polynomials for matroid polytopes, independence matroid polytopes, and polymatroids. In the first half of the paper we prove that, for fixed rank, Ehrhart polynomials of matroid polytopes and polymatroids are computable in polynomial time. The proof relies on the geometry of these polytopes as well as a new refined analysis of the evaluation of Todd polynomials. In the second half we discuss two conjectures about the h ^*-vector and the coefficients of Ehrhart polynomials of matroid polytopes; we provide theoretical and computational evidence for their validity.     

Yet on linear structures of norm-attaining functionals on Asplund spaces

In this paper, we show that if an Asplund space X is either a Banach lattice or a quotient space of C(K), then it can be equivalently renormed so that the set of norm-attaining functionals contains an infinite dimensional closed subspace of X^* if and only if X^* contains an infinite dimensional reflexive subspace, which gives a partial answer to a question of Bandyopadhyay and Godefroy.     

Derivations of CDC algebras

A CDC algebra is a reflexive operator algebra whose lattice is completely distributive and commutative. Nearly twenty years ago, Gilfeather and Moore obtained a necessary and sufficient condition for an isomorphism between CDC algebras to be quasi-spatial. In this paper, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for a derivation δ of CDC algebras to be quasi-spatial. Namely, δ is quasi-spatial if and only if δ(R) maps the kernel of R into the range of R for each finite rank operator R. Some examples are presented to show the sharpness of the condition. We also establish a sufficient condition on the lattice that guarantees that every derivation is quasi-spatial.     

Equidecomposable and weakly neighborly polytopes

A polytope is equidecomposable if all its triangulations have the same face numbers. For an equidecomposable polytope all minimal affine dependencies have an equal number of positive and negative coefficients. A subclass consists of the weakly neighborly polytopes, those for which every set of vertices is contained in a face of at most twice the dimension as the set. Theh-vector of every triangulation of a weakly neighborly polytope equals theh-vector of the polytope itself. Combinatorial properties of this class of polytopes are studied. Gale diagrams of weakly neighborly polytopes with few vertices are characterized in the spirit of the known Gale diagram characterization of Lawrence polytopes, a special class of weakly neighborly polytopes.     

Minkowski Length of 3D Lattice Polytopes

We study the Minkowski length L(P) of a lattice polytope P, which is defined to be the largest number of non-trivial primitive segments whose Minkowski sum lies in P. The Minkowski length represents the largest possible number of factors in a factorization of polynomials with exponent vectors in P, and shows up in lower bounds for the minimum distance of toric codes. In this paper we give a polytime algorithm for computing L(P) where P is a 3D lattice polytope. We next study 3D lattice polytopes of Minkowski length 1. In particular, we show that if Q, a subpolytope of P, is the Minkowski sum of L=L(P) lattice polytopes Q _i , each of Minkowski length 1, then the total number of interior lattice points of the polytopes Q ₁,??,Q _L is at most 4. Both results extend previously known results for lattice polygons. Our methods differ substantially from those used in the two-dimensional case.     

Classifying smooth lattice polytopes via toric fibrations

We show that any smooth Q-normal lattice polytope P of dimension n and degree d is a strict Cayley polytope if n?2d+1. This gives a sharp answer, for this class of polytopes, to a question raised by V.V. Batyrev and B. Nill.     

Cutting Polytopes and Flag f-Vectors

We show how the flag f -vector of a polytope changes when cutting off any face, generalizing work of Lee for simple polytopes. The result is in terms of explicit linear operators on cd-polynomials. Also, we obtain the change in the flag f -vector when contracting any face of the polytope. Received July 13, 1998, and in revised form April 14, 1999.     

Nonpolytopal Nonsimplicial Lattice Spheres with Nonnegative Toric g-Vector

We construct many nonpolytopal nonsimplicial Gorenstein^? meet semi-lattices with nonnegative toric g-vector, supporting a conjecture of Stanley. These are formed as Bier spheres over the face posets of multiplexes, polytopes constructed by Bisztriczky as generalizations of simplices.     

Volume and Lattice Points of Reflexive Simplices

Using new number-theoretic bounds on the denominators of unit fractions summing up to one, we show that in any dimension d ≥ 4 there is only one d-dimensional reflexive simplex having maximal volume. Moreover, only these reflexive simplices can admit an edge that has the maximal number of lattice points possible for an edge of a reflexive simplex. In general, these simplices are also expected to contain the largest number of lattice points even among all lattice polytopes with only one interior lattice point. Translated in algebro-geometric language, our main theorem yields a sharp upper bound on the anticanonical degree of d-dimensional Q-factorial Gorenstein toric Fano varieties with Picard number one, e.g., of weighted projective spaces with Gorenstein singularities.     

A classification of smooth convex 3-polytopes with at most 16 lattice points

We provide a complete classification up to isomorphism of all smooth convex lattice 3-polytopes with at most 16 lattice points. There exist in total 103 different polytopes meeting these criteria. Of these, 99 are strict Cayley polytopes and the remaining four are obtained as inverse stellar subdivisions of such polytopes. We derive a classification, up to isomorphism, of all smooth embeddings of toric threefolds in ? ^N where N≤15. Again we have in total 103 such embeddings. Of these, 99 are projective bundles embedded in ? ^N and the remaining four are blow-ups of such toric threefolds.     

Computation of the Highest Coefficients of Weighted Ehrhart Quasi-polynomials of Rational Polyhedra

This article concerns the computational problem of counting the lattice points inside convex polytopes, when each point must be counted with a weight associated to it. We describe an efficient algorithm for computing the highest degree coefficients of the weighted Ehrhart quasi-polynomial for a rational simple polytope in varying dimension, when the weights of the lattice points are given by a polynomial function h. Our technique is based on a refinement of an algorithm of A.?Barvinok in the unweighted case (i.e., h≡1). In contrast to Barvinok’s method, our method is local, obtains an approximation on the level of generating functions, handles the general weighted case, and provides the coefficients in closed form as step polynomials of the dilation. To demonstrate the practicality of our approach, we report on computational experiments which show that even our simple implementation can compete with state-of-the-art software.