Projection problems for symmetric polytopes

Let K⊂Rn be a convex body (a compact, convex subset with non-empty interior), ΠK its projection body. Finding the least upper bound, as K ranges over the class of origin-symmetric convex bodies, of the affine-invariant ratio V(ΠK)/V(K)ⁿ⁻¹, being called Schneider's projection problem, is a well-known open problem in the convex geometry. To study this problem, Lutwak, Yang and Zhang recently introduced a new affine invariant functional for convex polytopes in Rn. For origin-symmetric convex polytopes, they posed a conjecture for the new functional U(P). In this paper, we give an affirmative answer to the conjecture in Rn, thereby, obtain a modified version of Schneider's projection problem.     

Nondegenerate families of convex cones and convex polytopes

This paper describes relations between convex polytopes and certain families of convex cones in R ⁿ .The purpose is to use known properties of convex cones in order to solve Helly type problems for convex sets in R ⁿ or for spherically convex sets in S _n , the n-dimensional unit sphere. These results are strongly related to Gale diagrams.     

A Geometric Lower Bound Theorem

We resolve a conjecture of Kalai relating approximation theory of convex bodies by simplicial polytopes to the face numbers and primitive Betti numbers of these polytopes and their toric varieties. The proof uses higher notions of chordality. Further, for C ²-convex bodies, asymptotically tight lower bounds on the g-numbers of the approximating polytopes are given, in terms of their Hausdorff distance from the convex body.     

On perimeters of sections of convex polytopes

In his book “Geometric Tomography” Richard Gardner asks the following question. Let P and Q be origin-symmetric convex bodies in R³ whose sections by any plane through the origin have equal perimeters. Is it true that P=Q? We show that the answer is “Yes” in the class of origin-symmetric convex polytopes. The problem is treated in the general case of Rn.     

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.     

Total Curvature and Spiralling Shortest Paths

This paper gives a partial confirmation of a conjecture of Agarwal, Har-Peled, Sharir, and Varadarajan that the total curvature of a shortest path on the boundary of a convex polyhedron in R ³ cannot be arbitrarily large. It is shown here that the conjecture holds for a class of polytopes for which the ratio of the radii of the circumscribed and inscribed ball is bounded. On the other hand, an example is constructed to show that the total curvature of a shortest path on the boundary of a convex polyhedron in R ³ can exceed 2. Another example shows that the spiralling number of a shortest path on the boundary of a convex polyhedron can be arbitrarily large.     

Finding Optimal Shadows of Polytopes

This paper deals with the problem of projecting polytopes in finite-dimensional Euclidean spaces on subspaces of given dimension so as to maximize or minimize the volume of the projection. As to the computational complexity of the underlying decision problems we show that maximizing the volume of the orthogonal projection on hyperplanes is already NP-hard for simplices. For minimization, the problem is easy for simplices but NP-hard for bipyramids over parallelotopes. Similar results are given for projections on lower-dimensional subspaces. Several other related NP-hardness results are also proved including one for inradius computation of zonotopes and another for a location problem. On the positive side, we present various polynomial-time approximation algorithms. In particular, we give a randomized algorithm for maximizing orthogonal projections of CH-polytopes in R ⁿ on hyperplanes with an error bound of essentially . Received February 17, 1999.     

Profile vectors in the lattice of subspaces

The profile vector f(U)∈Rⁿ⁺¹ of a family U of subspaces of an n-dimensional vector space V over GF(q) is a vector of which the ith coordinate is the number of subspaces of dimension i in the family U(i=0,1,…,n). In this paper, we determine the profile polytope of intersecting families (the convex hull of the profile vectors of all intersecting families of subspaces).     

Determination of the element numbers of the regular polytopes

Let ?? be a set of n-dimensional polytopes. A set ?? of n-dimensional polytopes is said to be an element set for ?? if each polytope in ?? is the union of a finite number of polytopes in ?? identified along (n ? 1)-dimensional faces. The element number of the set ?? of polyhedra, denoted by e(??), is the minimum cardinality of the element sets for ??, where the minimum is taken over all possible element sets ${\Omega \in \mathcal{E}(\Sigma)}$ . It is proved in Theorem 1 that the element number of the convex regular 4-dimensional polytopes is 4, and in Theorem 2 that the element numbers of the convex regular n-dimensional polytopes is 3 for n ?? 5. The results in this paper together with our previous papers determine completely the element numbers of the convex regular n-dimensional polytopes for all n ?? 2.     

Dispersion of mass and the complexity of randomized geometric algorithms

How much can randomness help computation? Motivated by this general question and by volume computation, one of the few instances where randomness provably helps, we analyze a notion of dispersion and connect it to asymptotic convex geometry. We obtain a nearly quadratic lower bound on the complexity of randomized volume algorithms for convex bodies in Rn (the current best algorithm has complexity roughly n⁴, conjectured to be n³). Our main tools, dispersion of random determinants and dispersion of the length of a random point from a convex body, are of independent interest and applicable more generally; in particular, the latter is closely related to the variance hypothesis from convex geometry. This geometric dispersion also leads to lower bounds for matrix problems and property testing.     

Monotonicity properties of the Neumann heat kernel in the ball

A well-known conjecture of R. Laugesen and C. Morpurgo asserts that the diagonal of the Neumann heat kernel of the unit ball U⊂Rn is a strictly increasing radial function. In this paper we use probabilistic arguments to settle this conjecture and to prove some inequalities for the Neumann heat kernel in the ball.     

Simple polytopes without small separators

We show that by cutting off the vertices and then the edges of neighborly cubical polytopes, one obtains simple 4-dimensional polytopes with n vertices such that all separators of the graph have size at least Ω(n/log^3/2 n). This disproves a conjecture by Kalai from 1991/2004.     

The Busemann-Petty problem in hyperbolic and spherical spaces

The Busemann-Petty problem asks whether origin-symmetric convex bodies in Rⁿ with smaller central hyperplane sections necessarily have smaller n-dimensional volume. It is known that the answer to this problem is affirmative if n?4 and negative if n?5. We study this problem in hyperbolic and spherical spaces.     

Sufficient second-order optimality conditions for convex control constraints

In this article sufficient optimality conditions are established for optimal control problems with pointwise convex control constraints. Here, the control is a function with values in Rn. The constraint is of the form u(x)∈U(x), where U is a set-valued mapping that is assumed to be measurable with convex and closed images. The second-order condition requires coercivity of the Lagrange function on a suitable subspace, which excludes strongly active constraints, together with first-order necessary conditions. It ensures local optimality of a reference function in an L^∞-neighborhood. The analysis is done for a model problem namely the optimal distributed control of the instationary Navier-Stokes equations.     

Inequalities for convex bodies and polar reciprocal lattices inR n II: Application ofK-convexity

The paper is a supplement to [2]. LetL be a lattice andU ano-symmetric convex body inR ⁿ . The Minkowski functional? ⁿ ofU, the polar bodyU ⁰, the dual latticeL ^*, the covering radius μ(L, U), and the successive minima λ _i ,i=1, …,n, are defined in the usual way. Let $\mathcal{L}_n $ be the family of all lattices inR ⁿ . Given a convex bodyU, we define $$\begin{gathered} mh(U){\text{ }} = {\text{ }}\sup {\text{ }}\max \lambda _i (L,U)\lambda _{n - i + 1} (L^* ,U^0 ), \hfill \\ {\text{ }}L \in \mathcal{L}_n 1 \leqslant i \leqslant n \hfill \\ lh(U){\text{ }} = {\text{ }}\sup {\text{ }}\lambda _1 (L,U) \cdot \mu (L^* ,U^0 ), \hfill \\ {\text{ }}L \in \mathcal{L}_n \hfill \\ \end{gathered} $$ and kh(U) is defined as the smallest positive numbers for which, given arbitrary $L \in \mathcal{L}_n $ andx∈R ⁿ /(L+U), somey∈L ^* with ∥y∥ _U ⁰?sd(xy,Z) can be found. It is proved $$C_1 n \leqslant jh(U) \leqslant C_2 nK(R_U^n ) \leqslant C_3 n(1 + \log n),$$ , for j=k, l, m, whereC ₁,C ₂,C ₃ are some numerical constants andK(R _U ⁿ ) is theK-convexity constant of the normed space (R ⁿ , ∥∥U). This is an essential strengthening of the bounds obtained in [2]. The bounds for lh(U) are then applied to improve the results of Kannan and Lovász [5] estimating the lattice width of a convex bodyU by the number of lattice points inU.     

Cotorsion pairs associated with Auslander categories

Let N ≥ n + 1, and denote by K the convex hull of N independent standard gaussian random vectors in ℝⁿ. We prove that with high probability, the isotropic constant of K is bounded by a universal constant. Thus we verify the hyperplane conjecture for the class of gaussian random polytopes. Supported by the Clay Mathematics Institute and by NSF grant #DMS-0456590     

On hyperbolic virtual polytopes and hyperbolic fans

Hyperbolic virtual polytopes arose originally as polytopal versions of counterexamples to the following A.D.Alexandrov’s uniqueness conjecture: Let K ⊂ ℝ³ be a smooth convex body. If for a constant C, at every point of ∂K, we have R ₁ ≤ C ≤ R ₂ then K is a ball. (R ₁ and R ₂ stand for the principal curvature radii of ∂K.) This paper gives a new (in comparison with the previous construction by Y.Martinez-Maure and by G.Panina) series of counterexamples to the conjecture. In particular, a hyperbolic virtual polytope (and therefore, a hyperbolic hérisson) with odd an number of horns is constructed. Moreover, various properties of hyperbolic virtual polytopes and their fans are discussed.     

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.     

Triangulations of Cayley and Tutte polytopes

Cayley polytopes were defined recently as convex hulls of Cayley compositions introduced by Cayley in 1857. In this paper we resolve Braun’s conjecture  , which expresses the volume of Cayley polytopes in terms of the number of connected graphs. We extend this result to two one-variable deformations of Cayley polytopes (which we call t$t$-Cayley   and t$t$-Gayley polytopes), and to the most general two-variable deformations, which we call Tutte polytopes. The volume of the latter is given via an evaluation of the Tutte polynomial of the complete graph.     

Multidimensional Hermite-Hadamard inequalities and the convex order

The problem of establishing inequalities of the Hermite-Hadamard type for convex functions on n-dimensional convex bodies translates into the problem of finding appropriate majorants of the involved random vector for the usual convex order. We present two results of partial generality which unify and extend the most part of the multidimensional Hermite-Hadamard inequalities existing in the literature, at the same time that lead to new specific results. The first one fairly applies to the most familiar kinds of polytopes. The second one applies to symmetric random vectors taking values in a closed ball for a given (but arbitrary) norm on Rn. Related questions, such as estimates of approximation and extensions to signed measures, also are briefly discussed.