Convex Bodies, Graphs and Partial Orders

A convex corner is a compact convex down-set of full dimensionin Rⁿ. Convex corners arise in graph theory, for instance asstable set polytopes of graphs. They are also natural objects of study in geometry, as they correspond to 1-unconditionalnorms in an obvious way. In this paper, we study a parameterof convex corners, which we call the content, that is relatedto the volume. This parameter has appeared implicitly before:both in geometry, chiefly in a paper of Meyer (Israel J. Math.} 55 (1986) 317–327) effectively using content to givea proof of Saint-Raymond's Inequality on the volume product of a convex corner, and in combinatorics, especially in apaper of Sidorenko (Order} 8 (1991) 331–340) relatingcontent to the number of linear extensions of a partial order.One of our main aims is to expose connections between workin these two areas. We prove many new results, giving in particular various generalizations of Saint-Raymond's Inequality. Contentalso behaves well under the operation of pointwise product oftwo convex corners; our results enable us to give counter-examplesto two conjectures of Bollobás and Leader Oper. TheoryAdv. Appl. 77 (1995) 13–24) on pointwise products. 1991Mathematics Subject Classification: 52C07, 51M25, 52B11, 05C60,06A07.