Relationships Among Flag <Emphasis Type="Italic">f</Emphasis>-Vector Inequalities for Polytopes

We examine linear inequalities satisfied by the flag $f$-vectors of polytopes. One source of these inequalities is the toric $g$-vector; convolutions of its entries are non-negative for rational polytopes. We prove a conjecture of Meisinger about a redundancy in these inequalities. Another source of inequalities is the {\bf cd}-index; among all $d$-polytopes, each {\bf cd}-index coefficient is minimized on the $d$-simplex. We show that not all of the {\bf cd}-index inequalities are implied by the toric $g$-vector inequalities, and that not all of the toric $g$-vector inequalities are implied by the {\bf cd}-index inequalities. Finally, we show that some inequalities from convolutions of {\bf cd}-index coefficients are implied by other {\bf cd}-index inequalities.