How Neighborly Can a Centrally Symmetric Polytope Be?

We show that there exist k-neighborly centrally symmetric d-dimensional polytopes with 2(n + d) vertices, where

Monotonicity of the cd-index for polytopes

We prove that the cd-index of a convex polytope satisfies a strong monotonicity property with respect to the cd-indices of any face and its link. As a consequence, we prove for d-dimensional polytopes a conjecture of Stanley that the cd-index is minimized on the d-dimensional simplex. Moreover, we prove the upper bound theorem for the cd-index, namely that the cd-index of any d-dimensional polytope with n vertices is at most that of C(n,d), the d-dimensional cyclic polytope with n vertices. Received September 29, 1998; in final form February 8, 1999     

Neighborly Cubical Polytopes

Neighborly cubical polytopes exist: for any n≥ d≥ 2r+2 , there is a cubical convex d -polytope C _d ⁿ whose r -skeleton is combinatorially equivalent to that of the n -dimensional cube. This solves a problem of Babson, Billera, and Chan. Kalai conjectured that the boundary of a neighborly cubical polytope C _d ⁿ maximizes the f -vector among all cubical (d-1) -spheres with 2 ⁿ vertices. While we show that this is true for polytopal spheres if n≤ d+1 , we also give a counterexample for d=4 and n=6 . Further, the existence of neighborly cubical polytopes shows that the graph of the n -dimensional cube, where n\ge5 , is ``dimensionally ambiguous' in the sense of Grünbaum. We also show that the graph of the 5 -cube is ``strongly 4 -ambiguous.' In the special case d=4 , neighborly cubical polytopes have f ₃ =(f ₀ /4) log ₂ (f ₀ /4) vertices, so the facet—vertex ratio f ₃ /f ₀ is not bounded; this solves a problem of Kalai, Perles, and Stanley studied by Jockusch. Received December 30, 1998. Online publication May 15, 2000.     

A family of neighborly polytopes

Ad-polytopeP is said to be neighborly provided each [d/2] vertices determine a face ofP. We construct a family ofd-polytopes that are dual to neighborly polytopes by means of facet splitting. We use this family to find a lower bound on the number of combinatorial types of neighborly polytopes. We also show that all members of this family satisfy the famous Hirsch conjecture. Research supported by NSF Grant # MCS-07466.     

Improving Rogers' Upper Bound for the Density of Unit Ball Packings via Estimating the Surface Area of Voronoi Cells from Below in Euclidean \sl d -Space for All \sl d ≥ \bf 8

   Abstract. The sphere packing problem asks for the densest packing of unit balls in E ^d . This problem has its roots in geometry, number theory and information theory and it is part of Hilbert's 18th problem. One of the most attractive results on the sphere packing problem was proved by Rogers in 1958. It can be phrased as follows. Take a regular d -dimensional simplex of edge length 2 in E ^d and then draw a d -dimensional unit ball around each vertex of the simplex. Let σ _d denote the ratio of the volume of the portion of the simplex covered by balls to the volume of the simplex. Then the volume of any Voronoi cell in a packing of unit balls in E ^d is at least ω _d /σ _d , where ω _d denotes the volume of a d -dimensional unit ball. This has the immediate corollary that the density of any unit ball packing in E ^d is at most σ _d . In 1978 Kabatjanskii and Levenštein improved this bound for large d . In fact, Rogers' bound is the presently known best bound for 4≤ d≤ 42 , and above that the Kabatjanskii—Levenštein bound takes over. In this paper we improve Rogers' upper bound for the density of unit ball packings in Euclidean d -space for all d≥ 8 and improve the Kabatjanskii—Levenštein upper bound in small dimensions. Namely, we show that the volume of any Voronoi cell in a packing of unit balls in E ^d , d≥ 8 , is at least ω _d /

Lattice-free polytopes and their diameter

A convex polytope in real Euclidean space islattice-free if it intersects some lattice in space exactly in its vertex set. Lattice-free polytopes form a large and computationally hard class, and arise in many combinatorial and algorithmic contexts. In this article, affine and combinatorial properties of such polytopes are studied. First, bounds on some invariants, such as the diameter and layer-number, are given. It is shown that the diameter of ad-dimensional lattice-free polytope isO(d ³). A bound ofO(nd+d ³) on the diameter of ad-polytope withn facets is deduced for a large class of integer polytopes. Second, Delaunay polytopes and [0, 1]-polytopes, which form major subclasses of lattice-free polytopes, are considered. It is shown that, up to affine equivalence, for anyd≥3 there are infinitely manyd-dimensional lattice-free polytopes but only finitely many Delaunay and [0, 1]-polytopes. Combinatorial-types of lattice-free polytopes are discussed, and the inclusion relations among the subclasses above are examined. It is shown that the classes of combinatorial-types of Delaunay polytopes and [0,1]-polytopes are mutually incomparable starting in dimension six, and that both are strictly contained in the class of combinatorial-types of all lattice-free polytopes. This research was supported by DIMACS—the Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science at Rutgers University.     

A Centrally Symmetric Version of the Cyclic Polytope

We define a centrally symmetric analogue of the cyclic polytope and study its facial structure. We conjecture that our polytopes provide asymptotically the largest number of faces in all dimensions among all centrally symmetric polytopes with n vertices of a given even dimension d=2k when d is fixed and n grows. For a fixed even dimension d=2k and an integer 1≤j<k we prove that the maximum possible number of j-dimensional faces of a centrally symmetric d-dimensional polytope with n vertices is at least for some c _j (d)>0 and at most as n grows. We show that c ₁(d)≥1−(d−1)⁻¹ and conjecture that the bound is best possible. Research of A. Barvinok partially supported by NSF grant DMS 0400617. Research of I. Novik partially supported by Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and NSF grant DMS-0500748.     

The Number of Linear Extensions of the Boolean Lattice

Let L(Q ^t ) denote the number of linear extensions of the t-dimensional Boolean lattice Q ^t . We use the entropy method of Kahn to show that

Upper bounds for edge-antipodal and subequilateral polytopes

A polytope in a finite-dimensional normed space is subequilateral if the length in the norm of each of its edges equals its diameter. Subequilateral polytopes occur in the study of two unrelated subjects: surface energy minimizing cones and edge-antipodal polytopes. We show that the number of vertices of a subequilateral polytope in any d-dimensional normed space is bounded above by (d / 2 + 1) ^d for any d ≥ 2. The same upper bound then follows for the number of vertices of the edge-antipodal polytopes introduced by I. Talata [19]. This is a constructive improvement to the result of A. Pór (to appear) that for each dimension d there exists an upper bound f(d) for the number of vertices of an edge-antipodal d-polytopes. We also show that in d-dimensional Euclidean space the only subequilateral polytopes are equilateral simplices. This material is based upon work supported by the South African National Research Foundation under Grant number 2053752.     

3-star factors in random -regular graphs

The small subgraph conditioning method first appeared when Robinson and the second author showed the almost sure hamiltonicity of random d-regular graphs. Since then it has been used to study the almost sure existence of, and the asymptotic distribution of, regular spanning subgraphs of various types in random d-regular graphs and hypergraphs. In this paper, we use the method to prove the almost sure existence of 3-star factors in random d-regular graphs. This is essentially the first application of the method to non-regular subgraphs in such graphs.     

Gaps in the numbers of vertices of cubical polytopes,I

A cubical polytope is a convex polytope of which very facet is a combinatorial cube. We ask for the numbers which occur as vertex numbers ofd-dimensional cubical polytopes, and we show, as a first step, that every cubicald-polytope for evend≥4 has an even number of vertices.     

Counterexamples to the Strong d -Step Conjecture for d≥5

A Dantzig figure is a triple (P,x,y) in which P is a simple d -polytope with precisely 2d facets, x and y are vertices of P , and each facet is incident to x or y but not both. The famous d -step conjecture of linear programming is equivalent to the claim that always # ^d P(x,y) ≥ 1 , where # ^d P(x,y) denotes the number of paths that connect x to y by using precisely d edges of P . The recently formulated strong d -step conjecture makes a still stronger claim—namely, that always # ^d P(x,y) ≥ 2 ^d-1 . It is shown here that the strong d -step conjecture holds for d ≤ 4 , but fails for d ≥ 5 . Received December 27, 1995, and in revised form April 8, 1996.     

Valuations on Polytopes Containing the Origin in Their Interiors

We give a classification of non-negative or Borel measurable, SL(d) invariant, homogeneous valuations on the space of d-dimensional convex polytopes containing the origin in their interiors. The only examples are volume, volume of the polar body, and the Euler characteristic.     

On the duals of certain d-dimensional dual hyperovals in

Let d2. A construction of d-dimensional dual hyperovals in PG(2d+1,2) using quadratic APN functions was discovered by Yoshiara in [S. Yoshiara, Dimensional dual hyperovals associated with quadratic APN functions, Innov. Incidence Geom., in press]. In this note, we prove that the duals of the d-dimensional dual hyperovals in PG(2d+1,2) constructed from quadratic APN functions are also d-dimensional dual hyperovals in PG(2d+1,2) if, and only if, d is even. Some examples are presented.     

Revlex-initial 0/1-polytopes

We introduce revlex-initial 0/1-polytopes as the convex hulls of reverse-lexicographically initial subsets of 0/1-vectors. These polytopes are special knapsack-polytopes. It turns out that they have remarkable extremal properties. In particular, we use these polytopes in order to prove that the minimum numbers g_nfac(d,n) of facets and the minimum average degree g_avdeg(d,n) of the graph of a d-dimensional 0/1-polytope with n vertices satisfy g_nfac(d,n)?3d and g_avdeg(d,n)?d+4. We furthermore show that, despite the sparsity of their graphs, revlex-initial 0/1-polytopes satisfy a conjecture due to Mihail and Vazirani, claiming that the graphs of 0/1-polytopes have edge-expansion at least one.     

Borwein's conjecture on average over arithmetic progressions

We provide asymptotic formulas for sums over arithmetic progressions of coefficients of products of the form

Convex polytopes without triangular faces

LetP be a convexd-polytope without triangular 2-faces. Forj=0,…,d−1 denote byf _j(P) the number ofj-dimensional faces ofP. We prove the lower boundf _j(P)≥f _j(C _d) whereC _d is thed-cube, which has been conjectured by Y. Kupitz in 1980. We also show that for anyj equality is only attained for cubes. This result is a consequence of the far-reaching observation that such polytopes have pairs of disjoint facets. As a further application we show that there exists only one combinatorial type of such polytopes with exactly 2d+1 facets.     

Cyclic polytopes and d-order curves

A cyclic d-polytope is a convex polytope combinatorially equivalent to the convex hull of a finite subset of a d-order curve in R ^d. We give an affirmative answer to a conjecture of M. A. Perles [4] by proving that every even-dimensional cyclic polytope occurs in this way: its set of vertices can always be extended to a d-order curve.     

Monotone paths on polytopes

We investigate the vertex-connectivity of the graph of f-monotone paths on a d-polytopeP with respect to a generic functionalf. The third author has conjectured that this graph is always (d )-connected. We resolve this conjecture positively for simple polytopes and show that the graph is 2-connected for any d-polytope with . However, we disprove the conjecture in general by exhibiting counterexamples for each in which the graph has a vertex of degree two. We also re-examine the Baues problem for cellular strings on polytopes, solved by Billera, Kapranov and Sturmfels. Our analysis shows that their positive result is a direct consequence of shellability of polytopes and is therefore less related to convexity than is at first apparent. Received April 6, 1999 / in final form October 1, 1999 / Published online July 20, 2000     

A Note on the Minimal Volume of Almost Cubic Parallelepipeds

   Abstract. We prove that the best way to reduce the volume of the n -dimensional unit cube by a linear transformation that maps each of the main vertices