We give an upper bound on the volume $\operatorname {vol}(P^*)$ of a polytope $P^*$ dual to a d-dimensional lattice polytope P with exactly one interior lattice point in each dimension d. This bound, expressed in terms of the Sylvester sequence, is sharp and achieved by the dual to a particular reflexive simplex. Our result implies a sharp upper bound on the volume of a d-dimensional reflexive polytope. Translated into toric geometry, this gives a sharp upper bound on the anti-canonical degree $(-K_X)^d$ of a d-dimensional Fano toric variety X with at worst canonical singularities.

We investigate a recently devised polyhedral semantics for intermediate logics, in which formulas are interpreted in n-dimensional polyhedra. An intermediate logic is polyhedrally complete if it is complete with respect to some class of polyhedra. The first main result of this paper is a necessary and sufficient condition for the polyhedral completeness of a logic. This condition, which we call the Nerve Criterion, is expressed in terms of Alexandrov’s notion of the nerve of a poset. It affords a purely combinatorial characterisation of polyhedrally complete logics. Using the Nerve Criterion we show, easily, that there are continuum many intermediate logics that are not polyhedrally complete but which have the finite model property. We also provide, at considerable combinatorial labour, a countably infinite class of logics axiomatised by the Jankov–Fine formulas of ‘starlike trees’ all of which are polyhedrally complete. The polyhedral completeness theorem for these ‘starlike logics’ is the second main result of this paper.

In this paper we introduce two new classes of stationary random simplicial tessellations, the so-called $\beta$- and $\beta^{\prime}$-Delaunay tessellations. Their construction is based on a space–time paraboloid hull process and generalizes that of the classical Poisson–Delaunay tessellation. We explicitly identify the distribution of volume-power-weighted typical cells, establishing thereby a remarkable connection to the classes of $\beta$- and $\beta^{\prime}$-polytopes. These representations are used to determine the principal characteristics of such cells, including volume moments, expected angle sums, and cell intensities.

We prove that projective spaces of Lorentzian and real stable polynomials are homeomorphic to Euclidean balls. This solves a conjecture of June Huh and the author. The proof utilises and refines a connection between the symmetric exclusion process in interacting particle systems and the geometry of polynomials.

In 2006, Kenyon and Okounkov Kenyon and Okounkov [12] computed the moduli space of Harnack curves of degree d in ${\mathbb {C}\mathbb {P}}^2$. We generalise their construction to any projective toric surface and show that the moduli space ${\mathcal {H}_\Delta }$ of Harnack curves with Newton polygon $\Delta $ is diffeomorphic to ${\mathbb {R}}^{m-3}\times {\mathbb {R}}_{\geq 0}^{n+g-m}$, where $\Delta $ has m edges, g interior lattice points and n boundary lattice points. This solves a conjecture of Crétois and Lang. The main result uses abstract tropical curves to construct a compactification of this moduli space where additional points correspond to collections of curves that can be patchworked together to produce a curve in ${\mathcal {H}_\Delta }$. This compactification has a natural stratification with the same poset as the secondary polytope of $\Delta $.

Given n distinct points$\mathbf {x}_1, \ldots , \mathbf {x}_n$ in$\mathbb {R}^d$, let K denote their convex hull, which we assume to be d-dimensional, and$B = \partial K $ its$(d-1)$-dimensional boundary. We construct an explicit, easily computable one-parameter family of continuous maps$\mathbf {f}_{\varepsilon } \colon \mathbb {S}^{d-1} \to K$ which, for$\varepsilon> 0$, are defined on the$(d-1)$-dimensional sphere, and whose images$\mathbf {f}_{\varepsilon }({\mathbb {S}^{d-1}})$ are codimension$1$ submanifolds contained in the interior of K. Moreover, as the parameter$\varepsilon $ goes to$0^+$, the images$\mathbf {f}_{\varepsilon } ({\mathbb {S}^{d-1}})$ converge, as sets, to the boundary B of the convex hull. We prove this theorem using techniques from convex geometry of (spherical) polytopes and set-valued homology. We further establish an interesting relationship with the Gauss map of the polytope B, appropriately defined. Several computer plots illustrating these results are included.

Le nombre chromatique relatif $c_0(S)$ d’une surface compacte S à bord est défini comme la borne supérieure des nombres chromatiques des graphes plongés dans S avec tous leurs sommets sur $\partial S$. Cet invariant topologique a été introduit pour l’étude de la multiplicité de la première valeur propre de Steklov sur S. Dans cet article, on montre que $c_0(S)$ est aussi pertinent pour l’étude des plongements polyédraux tendus de S en établissant deux résultats. Le premier est que s’il existe un plongement polyédral tendu de S dans $\mathbb {R}^n$ qui n’est pas contenu dans un hyperplan, alors $n\leq c_0(S)-1$. Le second est que cette inégalité est optimale pour les surfaces de petit genre.

The (tree) amplituhedron $\mathcal {A}_{n,k,m}(Z)$ is a certain subset of the Grassmannian introduced by Arkani-Hamed and Trnka in 2013 in order to study scattering amplitudes in $N=4$ supersymmetric Yang–Mills theory. Confirming a conjecture of the first author, we show that when $m$ is even, a collection of affine permutations yields a triangulation of $\mathcal {A}_{n,k,m}(Z)$ for any $Z\in \operatorname {Gr}_{>0}(k+m,n)$ if and only if the collection of their inverses yields a triangulation of $\mathcal {A}_{n,n-m-k,m}(Z)$ for any $Z\in \operatorname {Gr}_{>0}(n-k,n)$. We prove this duality using the twist map of Marsh and Scott. We also show that this map preserves the canonical differential forms associated with the corresponding positroid cells, and hence obtain a parity duality for amplituhedron differential forms.

A new approach to prove weak convergence of random polytopes on the space of compact convex sets is presented. This is used to show that the profile of the rescaled Schläfli random cone of a random conical tessellation, generated by n independent and uniformly distributed random linear hyperplanes in $\mathbb {R}^{d+1}$, weakly converges to the typical cell of a stationary and isotropic Poisson hyperplane tessellation in $\mathbb {R}^d$, as $n\to \infty $.

The Gaussian polytope $\mathcal P_{n,d}$ is the convex hull of n independent standard normally distributed points in $\mathbb{R}^d$. We derive explicit expressions for the probability that $\mathcal P_{n,d}$ contains a fixed point $x\in\mathbb{R}^d$ as a function of the Euclidean norm of x, and the probability that $\mathcal P_{n,d}$ contains the point $\sigma X$, where $\sigma\geq 0$ is constant and X is a standard normal vector independent of $\mathcal P_{n,d}$. As a by-product, we also compute the expected number of k-faces and the expected volume of $\mathcal P_{n,d}$, thus recovering the results of Affentranger and Schneider (Discr. and Comput. Geometry, 1992) and Efron (Biometrika, 1965), respectively. All formulas are in terms of the volumes of regular spherical simplices, which, in turn, can be expressed through the standard normal distribution function $\Phi(z)$ and its complex version $\Phi(iz)$. The main tool used in the proofs is the conic version of the Crofton formula.

An abstract system of congruences describes a way of partitioning a space into finitely many pieces satisfying certain congruence relations. Examples of abstract systems of congruences include paradoxical decompositions and $n$-divisibility of actions. We consider the general question of when there are realizations of abstract systems of congruences satisfying various measurability constraints. We completely characterize which abstract systems of congruences can be realized by nonmeager Baire measurable pieces of the sphere under the action of rotations on the $2$-sphere. This answers a question by Wagon. We also construct Borel realizations of abstract systems of congruences for the action of $\mathsf{PSL}_{2}(\mathbb{Z})$ on $\mathsf{P}^{1}(\mathbb{R})$. The combinatorial underpinnings of our proof are certain types of decomposition of Borel graphs into paths. We also use these decompositions to obtain some results about measurable unfriendly colorings.

In the classical setting, a convex polytope is said to be semiregular if its facets are regular and its symmetry group is transitive on vertices. This paper continues our study of alternating semiregular abstract polytopes, which have abstract regular facets, still with combinatorial automorphism group transitive on vertices and with two kinds of regular facets occurring in an alternating fashion.

Our main concern here is the universal polytope ${\mathcal{U}}_{{\mathcal{P}},{\mathcal{Q}}}$, an alternating semiregular $(n+1)$-polytope defined for any pair of regular $n$-polytopes ${\mathcal{P}},{\mathcal{Q}}$ with isomorphic facets. After a careful look at the local structure of these objects, we develop the combinatorial machinery needed to explain how ${\mathcal{U}}_{{\mathcal{P}},{\mathcal{Q}}}$ can be constructed by “freely assembling” unlimited copies of ${\mathcal{P}}$, ${\mathcal{Q}}$ along their facets in alternating fashion. We then examine the connection group of ${\mathcal{U}}_{{\mathcal{P}},{\mathcal{Q}}}$, and from that prove that ${\mathcal{U}}_{{\mathcal{P}},{\mathcal{Q}}}$ covers any $(n+1)$-polytope ${\mathcal{B}}$ whose facets alternate in any way between various quotients of ${\mathcal{P}}$ or ${\mathcal{Q}}$.

All SL($n$) contravariant symmetric matrix valued valuations on convex polytopes in $\mathbb{R}^{n}$ are completely classified without any continuity assumptions. The general Lutwak–Yang–Zhang matrix is shown to be essentially the unique such valuation.

Let $M$ be a regular matroid. The Jacobian group $\text{Jac}(M)$ of $M$ is a finite abelian group whose cardinality is equal to the number of bases of $M$. This group generalizes the definition of the Jacobian group (also known as the critical group or sandpile group) $\operatorname{Jac}(G)$ of a graph $G$ (in which case bases of the corresponding regular matroid are spanning trees of $G$). There are many explicit combinatorial bijections in the literature between the Jacobian group of a graph $\text{Jac}(G)$ and spanning trees. However, most of the known bijections use vertices of $G$ in some essential way and are inherently ‘nonmatroidal’. In this paper, we construct a family of explicit and easy-to-describe bijections between the Jacobian group of a regular matroid $M$ and bases of $M$, many instances of which are new even in the case of graphs. We first describe our family of bijections in a purely combinatorial way in terms of orientations; more specifically, we prove that the Jacobian group of $M$ admits a canonical simply transitive action on the set ${\mathcal{G}}(M)$ of circuit–cocircuit reversal classes of $M$, and then define a family of combinatorial bijections $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E},\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}^{\ast }}$ between ${\mathcal{G}}(M)$ and bases of $M$. (Here $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$ (respectively $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}^{\ast }$) is an acyclic signature of the set of circuits (respectively cocircuits) of $M$.) We then give a geometric interpretation of each such map $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}=\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E},\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}^{\ast }}$ in terms of zonotopal subdivisions which is used to verify that $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$ is indeed a bijection. Finally, we give a combinatorial interpretation of lattice points in the zonotope $Z$; by passing to dilations we obtain a new derivation of Stanley’s formula linking the Ehrhart polynomial of $Z$ to the Tutte polynomial of $M$.

All non-negative, continuous, $\text{SL}(n)$, and translation invariant valuations on the space of super-coercive, convex functions on $\mathbb{R}^{n}$ are classified. Furthermore, using the invariance of the function space under the Legendre transform, a classification of non-negative, continuous, $\text{SL}(n)$, and dually translation invariant valuations is obtained. In both cases, different functional analogs of the Euler characteristic, volume, and polar volume are characterized.

We study $n$-vertex $d$-dimensional polytopes with at most one nonsimplex facet with, say, $d+s$ vertices, called almost simplicial polytopes. We provide tight lower and upper bound theorems for these polytopes as functions of $d,n$, and $s$, thus generalizing the classical Lower Bound Theorem by Barnette and the Upper Bound Theorem by McMullen, which treat the case where $s=0$. We characterize the minimizers and provide examples of maximizers for any $d$. Our construction of maximizers is a generalization of cyclic polytopes, based on a suitable variation of the moment curve, and is of independent interest.

Given complex numbers w1,…,wn, we define the weight w(X) of a set X of 0–1 vectors as the sum of $w_1^{x_1} \cdots w_n^{x_n}$ over all vectors (x1,…,xn) in X. We present an algorithm which, for a set X defined by a system of homogeneous linear equations with at most r variables per equation and at most c equations per variable, computes w(X) within relative error ∊ > 0 in (rc)O(lnn-ln∊) time provided $|w_j| \leq \beta (r \sqrt{c})^{-1}$ for an absolute constant β > 0 and all j = 1,…,n. A similar algorithm is constructed for computing the weight of a linear code over ${\mathbb F}_p$. Applications include counting weighted perfect matchings in hypergraphs, counting weighted graph homomorphisms, computing weight enumerators of linear codes with sparse code generating matrices, and computing the partition functions of the ferromagnetic Potts model at low temperatures and of the hard-core model at high fugacity on biregular bipartite graphs.

Fixing a positive integer r and $0 \les k \les r-1$, define $f^{\langle r,k \rangle }$ for every formal power series f as $ f(x) = f^{\langle r,0 \rangle }(x^r)+xf^{\langle r,1 \rangle }(x^r)+ \cdots +x^{r-1}f^{\langle r,r-1 \rangle }(x^r).$ Jochemko recently showed that the polynomial $U^{n}_{r,k}\, h(x) := ( (1+x+\cdots +x^{r-1})^{n} h(x) )^{\langle r,k \rangle }$ has only non-positive zeros for any $r \ges \deg h(x) -k$ and any positive integer n. As a consequence, Jochemko confirmed a conjecture of Beck and Stapledon on the Ehrhart polynomial $h(x)$ of a lattice polytope of dimension n, which states that $U^{n}_{r,0}\,h(x)$ has only negative, real zeros whenever $r\ges n$. In this paper, we provide an alternative approach to Beck and Stapledon's conjecture by proving the following general result: if the polynomial sequence $( h^{\langle r,r-i \rangle }(x))_{1\les i \les r}$ is interlacing, so is $( U^{n}_{r,r-i}\, h(x) )_{1\les i \les r}$. Our result has many other interesting applications. In particular, this enables us to give a new proof of Savage and Visontai's result on the interlacing property of some refinements of the descent generating functions for coloured permutations. Besides, we derive a Carlitz identity for refined coloured permutations.

A classical result of Honsberger states that the number of incongruent triangles with integer sides and perimeter $n$ is the nearest integer to $n^{2}/48$ ($n$ even) or $(n+3)^{2}/48$ ($n$ odd). We solve the analogous problem for $m$-gons (for arbitrary but fixed $m\geq 3$) and for polygons (with arbitrary number of sides).

We study lower bounds for the number of vertices in a PL-triangulation of a given manifold M. While most of the previous estimates are based on the dimension and the connectivity of M, we show that further information can be extracted by studying the structure of the fundamental group of M and applying techniques from the Lusternik-Schnirelmann category theory. In particular, we prove that every PL-triangulation of a d-dimensional manifold (d ⩾ 3) whose fundamental group is not free has at least 3d + 1 vertices. As a corollary, every d-dimensional homology sphere that admits a combinatorial triangulation with less than 3d vertices is PL-homeomorphic to Sd. Another important consequence is that every triangulation with small links of M is combinatorial.