The number of extreme points of tropical polyhedra

The celebrated upper bound theorem of McMullen determines the maximal number of extreme points of a polyhedron in terms of its dimension and the number of constraints which define it, showing that the maximum is attained by the polar of the cyclic polytope. We show that the same bound is valid in the tropical setting, up to a trivial modification. Then, we study the tropical analogues of the polars of a family of cyclic polytopes equipped with a sign pattern. We construct bijections between the extreme points of these polars and lattice paths depending on the sign pattern, from which we deduce explicit bounds for the number of extreme points, showing in particular that the upper bound is asymptotically tight as the dimension tends to infinity, keeping the number of constraints fixed. When transposed to the classical case, the previous constructions yield some lattice path generalizations of Gale's evenness criterion.     

Multidimensional pseudo-spectral methods on lattice grids

When multidimensional functions are approximated by a truncated Fourier series, the number of terms typically increases exponentially with the dimension s. However, for functions with more structure than just being L²-integrable, the contributions from many of the Ns terms in the truncated Fourier series may be insignificant. In this paper we suggest a way to reduce the number of terms by omitting the insignificant ones. We then show how lattice rules can be used for approximating the associated Fourier coefficients, allowing a similar reduction in grid points as in expansion terms. We also show that using a lattice grid permits the efficient computation of the Fourier coefficients by the FFT algorithm. Finally we assemble these ideas into a pseudo-spectral algorithm and demonstrate its efficiency on the Poisson equation.     

Concerning the shape of a geometric lattice

A well-known conjecture states that the Whitney numbers of the second kind of a geometric lattice (simple matroid) are logarithmically concave. We show this conjecture to be equivalent to proving an upper bound on the number of new copoints in the free erection of the associated simple matroid M. A bound on the number of these new copoints is given in terms of the copoints and colines of M. Also, the points-lines-planes conjecture is shown to be equivalent to a problem concerning the number of subgraphs of a certain bipartite graph whose vertices are the points and lines of a geometric lattice.     

The area within a curve

The area of a simple closed convex curve can be estimated in terms of the number of points of a square lattice that lie within the curve. We obtain the usual error bound without integration using a form of the Hardy—Littlewood—Ramanujan circle method, and also present simple estimates for the mean square error.     

The Second Term in the Asymptotics for the Number of Points Moving Along a Metric Graph

We consider the problem of determining the asymptotics for the number of points moving along a metric graph. This problem is motivated by the problem of the evolution of wave packets, which at the initial moment of time are localized in a small neighborhood of one point. It turns out that the number of points, as a function of time, allows a polynomial approximation. This polynomial is expressed via Barnes’ multiple Bernoulli polynomials, which are related to the problem of counting the number of lattice points in expanding simplexes. In this paper we give explicit formulas for the first two terms of the expansion for the counting function of the number of moving points. The leading term was found earlier and depends only on the number of vertices, the number of edges and the lengths of the edges. The second term in the expansion shows what happens to the graph when one or two edges are removed. In particular, whether it breaks up into several connected components or not. In this paper, examples of the calculation of the leading and second terms are given.     

Lattice Points in Three-Dimensional Convex Bodies with Points of Gaussian Curvature Zero at the Boundary

 In this article we investigate the number of lattice points in a three-dimensional convex body which contains non-isolated points with Gaussian curvature zero but a finite number of flat points at the boundary. Especially, in case of rational tangential planes in these points we investigate not only the influence of the flat points but also of the other points with Gaussian curvature zero on the estimation of the lattice rest.     

Lattice Points Inside Rational Simplices and the Casson Invariant of Brieskorn Spheres

We express the number of lattice points inside certain simplices with vertices in Q³ or Q⁴ in terms of Dedekind–Rademacher sums. This leads to an elementary proof of a formula relating the Euler characteristic of the Seiberg–Witten-Floer homology of a Brieskorn Z-homology sphere to the Casson invariant.     

The Flagged Cauchy Determinant

We consider a flagged form of the Cauchy determinant, for which we provide a combinatorial interpretation in terms of nonintersecting lattice paths. In combination with the standard determinant for the enumeration of nonintersecting lattice paths, we are able to give a new proof of the Cauchy identity for Schur functions. Moreover, by choosing different starting and end points for the lattice paths, we are led to a lattice path proof of an identity of Gessel which expresses a Cauchy-like sum of Schur functions in terms of the complete symmetric functions.     

Covering lattice points by subspaces

We find tight estimates for the minimum number of proper subspaces needed to cover all lattice points in an n-dimensional convex body C , symmetric about the origin 0. This enables us to prove the following statement, which settles a problem of G. Halász. The maximum number of n-wise linearly independent lattice points in the n-dimensional ball r B n of radius r around 0 is O(rn/(n-1)). This bound cannot be improved. We also show that the order of magnitude of the number of diferent (n - 1)-dimensional subspaces induced by the lattice points in r&Bgr;n is rn/(n-1).     

Lattice Points in Three-Dimensional Convex Bodies with Points of Gaussian Curvature Zero at the Boundary

 In this article we investigate the number of lattice points in a three-dimensional convex body which contains non-isolated points with Gaussian curvature zero but a finite number of flat points at the boundary. Especially, in case of rational tangential planes in these points we investigate not only the influence of the flat points but also of the other points with Gaussian curvature zero on the estimation of the lattice rest. Received 19 June 2001; in revised form 17 January 2002 RID="a" ID="a" Dedicated to Professor Edmund Hlawka on the occasion of his 85th birthday     

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.     

Géométrie des nombres adélique et lemmes de Siegel généralisés

A Siegel’s lemma provides an explicit upper bound for a non-zero vector of minimal height in a finite dimensional vector spaces over a number field. This article explains how to obtain Siegel’s lemmas for which the minimal vectors do not belong to a finite union of vector subspaces (Siegel’s lemmas with conditions). The proofs mix classical results of adelic geometry of numbers and an adelic variant of a theorem of Henk about the number of lattice points of a centrally symmetric convex body in terms of the successive minima of the body.     

Lattice Points in Planar Convex Domains

We investigate the number of lattice points in planar convex domains. We give estimates of the remainder in the asymptotic representation with numerical constants, which are astonishingly small. We consider convex planar domains whose boundary has nonvanishing curvature throughout. Here the curvature of the curve of boundary plays an important role. Further, we consider the number of lattice points in domains which are bounded by superellipses. These curves have isolated points with curvature zero.     

Brillouin zones and the geometry of numbers

It is shown in the paper that Brillouin zones (which originally appeared in the quantum theory of solids) possess a number of remarkable, purely geometrical and arithmetical properties. In their terms, problems in the geometry of numbers concerning the best packing and covering of circles and balls by fundamental domains of lattices can be solved. The geometry of Brillouin zones is found to be also closely connected with the classical number-theoretical problems concerning the number of lattice points in a circle and a ball.Translated from Zapiski Nauchnykh Seminarov Leningradskogo Otdeleniya Matematicheskogo Instituta im. V. A. Steklova AN SSSR, Vol. 134, pp. 206–225, 1984.     

Extensible hyperplane nets

Extensible (polynomial) lattice point sets have the property that the number N of points in the node set of a quasi-Monte Carlo algorithm may be increased while retaining the existing points. Explicit constructions for extensible (polynomial) lattice point sets have been presented recently by Niederreiter and Pillichshammer. It is the aim of this paper to establish extensibility for a powerful generalization of polynomial lattice point sets, the so-called hyperplane nets.     

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.     

The many aspects of counting lattice points in polytopes

A wide variety of topics in pure and applied mathematics involve the problem of counting the number of lattice points inside a convex bounded polyhedron, for short called a polytope. Applications range from the very pure (number theory, toric Hilbert functions, Kostant’s partition function in representation theory) to the most applied (cryptography, integer programming, contingency tables). This paper is a survey of this problem and its applications. We review the basic structure theorems about this type of counting problem. Perhaps the most famous special case is the theory of Ehrhart polynomials, introduced in the 1960s by Eugène Ehrhart. These polynomials count the number of lattice points in the different integral dilations of an integral convex polytope. We discuss recent algorithmic solutions to this problem and conclude with a look at what happens when trying to count lattice points in more complicated regions of space.     

Orthogonal splitting and class numbers of quadratic forms

Orthogonal splitting for lattices on quadratic spaces over algebraic number fields is studied. It is seen that if the rank of a lattice is sufficiently large, then its spinor genus must contain a decomposable lattice. Also, splitting theory is used to obtain a lower bound for the class number of a lattice (in the definite case) in terms of its rank, via the partition function.     

A short proof of the twelve-point theorem

We present a short elementary proof of the following twelve-point theorem. Let M be a convex polygon with vertices at lattice points, containing a single lattice point in its interior. Denote by m (respectively, m*) the number of lattice points in the boundary of M (respectively, in the boundary of the dual polygon). Then m + m* = 12.