arXiv subjects

Francisco Santos

Publications and source records attributed to Francisco Santos.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Classification of empty lattice $4$-simplices of width larger than two

A lattice $d$-simplex is the convex hull of $d+1$ affinely independent integer points in ${\mathbb R}^d$. It is called empty if it contains no lattice point apart of its $d+1$ vertices. The classification of empty $3$-simplices is known since 1964 (White), based on the fact that they all have width one. But for dimension $4$ no complete classification is known. Haase and Ziegler (2000) enumerated all empty $4$-simplices up to determinant 1000 and based on their results conjectured that after determinant $179$ all empty $4$-simplices have width one or two. We prove this conjecture as follows: - We show that no empty $4$-simplex of width three or more can have determinant greater than 5058, by combining the recent classification of hollow 3-polytopes (Averkov, Krümpelmann and Weltge, 2017) with general methods from the geometry of numbers. - We continue the computations of Haase and Ziegler up to determinant 7600, and find that no new $4$-simplices of width larger than two arise. In particular, we give the whole list of empty $4$-simplices of width larger than two, which is as computed by Haase and Ziegler: There is a single empty $4$-simplex of width four (of determinant 101), and 178 empty $4$-simplices of width three, with determinants ranging from 41 to 179.

math.CO↗

arXiv2017

Existence of unimodular triangulations - positive results

Unimodular triangulations of lattice polytopes arise in algebraic geometry, commutative algebra, integer programming and, of course, combinatorics. In this article, we review several classes of polytopes that do have unimodular triangulations and constructions that preserve their existence. We include, in particular, the first effective proof of the classical result by Knudsen-Mumford-Waterman stating that every lattice polytope has a dilation that admits a unimodular triangulation. Our proof yields an explicit (although doubly exponential) bound for the dilation factor.

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arXiv2017

Enumeration of lattice 3-polytopes by their number of lattice points

We develop a procedure for the complete computational enumeration of lattice $3$-polytopes of width larger than one, up to any given number of lattice points. We also implement an algorithm for doing this and enumerate those with at most eleven lattice points (there are 216,453 of them). In order to achieve this we prove that if $P$ is a lattice 3-polytope of width larger than one and with at least seven lattice points then it fits in one of three categories that we call boxed, spiked and merged. Boxed polytopes have at most 11 lattice points; in particular they are finitely many, and we enumerate them completely with computer help. Spiked polytopes are infinitely many but admit a quite precise description (and enumeration). Merged polytopes are computed as a union (merging) of two polytopes of width larger than one and strictly smaller number of lattice points.

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arXiv2016

Lattice 3-polytopes with few lattice points

We extend White's classification of empty tetrahedra to the complete classification of lattice $3$-polytopes with five lattice points, showing that, apart from infinitely many of width one, there are exactly nine equivalence classes of them with width two and none of larger width. We also prove that, for each $n\in \mathbb{N}$, there is only a finite number of (classes of) lattice $3$-polytopes with $n$ lattice points and of width larger than one. This implies that extending the present classification to larger sizes makes sense, which is the topic of subsequent papers of ours.

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arXiv2016

The maximum diameter of pure simplicial complexes and pseudo-manifolds

We construct $d$-dimensional pure simplicial complexes and pseudo-manifolds (without boundary) with $n$ vertices whose combinatorial diameter grows as $c_d n^{d-1}$ for a constant $c_d$ depending only on $d$, which is the maximum possible growth. Moreover, the constant $c_d$ is optimal modulo a singly exponential factor in $d$. The pure simplicial complexes improve on a construction of the second author that achieved $c_d n^{2d/3}$. For pseudo-manifolds without boundary, as far as we know, no construction with diameter greater than $n^2$ was previously known.

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arXiv2015

Hirsch polytopes with exponentially long combinatorial segments

In their paper proving the Hirsch bound for flag normal simplicial complexes (Math. Oper.~Res.~2014) Adiprasito and Benedetti define the notion of~\emph{combinatorial segment}. The study of the maximal length of these objects provides the upper bound~$O(n2^d)$ for the diameter of any normal pure simplicial complex of dimension~$d$ with~$n$ vertices, and the Hirsch bound $n-d$ if the complexes are, moreover, flag. In the present article, we propose a formulation of combinatorial segments which is equivalent but more local, by introducing the notions of monotonicity and conservativeness of dual paths in pure simplicial complexes. We use this definition to investigate further properties of combinatorial segments. Besides recovering the two stated bounds, we show a refined bound for banner complexes, and study the behavior of the maximal length of combinatorial segments with respect to two usual operations, namely join and one-point suspension. Finally, we show the limitations of combinatorial segments by constructing pure normal simplicial complexes in which all combinatorial segments between two particular facets achieve the length $Ω(n2^{d})$. This includes vertex-decomposable---therefore Hirsch---polytopes.

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arXiv2015

Lattice 3-polytopes with six lattice points

We classify lattice $3$-polytopes of width larger than one and with exactly $6$ lattice points. We show that there are $74$ polytopes of width $2$, two polytopes of width $3$, and none of larger width. We give explicit coordinates for representatives of each class, together with other invariants such as their oriented matroid (or order type) and volume vector. For example, according to the number of interior points these $76$ polytopes divide into $23$ tetrahedra with two interior points (clean tetrahedra), $49$ polytopes with one interior point (the $49$ canonical three-polytopes with five boundary points previously classified by Kasprzyk) and only $4$ hollow polytopes. We also give a complete classification of three-polytopes of width one with $6$ lattice points. In terms of the oriented matroid of these six points, they lie in eight infinite classes and twelve individual polytopes. Our motivation comes partly from the concept of distinct pair sum (or dps) polytopes, which, in dimension $3$, can have at most $8$ lattice points. Among the $74+2$ classes mentioned above, exactly $44 + 1$ are dps.

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arXiv2014

Many triangulated odd-spheres

It is known that the $(2k-1)$-sphere has at most $2^{O(n^k \log n)}$ combinatorially distinct triangulations with $n$ vertices, for every $k\ge 2$. Here we construct at least $2^{Ω(n^k)}$ such triangulations, improving on the previous constructions which gave $2^{Ω(n^{k-1})}$ in the general case (Kalai) and $2^{Ω(n^{5/4})}$ for $k=2$ (Pfeifle-Ziegler). We also construct $2^{Ω\left(n^{k-1+\frac{1}{k}}\right)}$ geodesic (a.k.a. star-convex) $n$-vertex triangualtions of the $(2k-1)$-sphere. As a step for this (in the case $k=2$) we construct $n$-vertex $4$-polytopes containing $Ω(n^{3/2})$ facets that are not simplices, or with $Ω(n^{3/2})$ edges of degree three.

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arXiv2014

Noncrossing sets and a Graßmann associahedron

We study a natural generalization of the noncrossing relation between pairs of elements in [n] to k-tuples in [n] that was first considered by Petersen, Pylyavskyy, Speyer (2010). We give an alternative approach to their result that the flag simplicial complex on $\binom{[n]}{k}$ induced by this relation is a regular, unimodular and flag triangulation of the order polytope of the poset given by the product $[k]\times[n-k]$ of two chains (also called Gelfand-Tsetlin polytope), and that it is the join of a simplex and a sphere (that is, it is a Gorenstein triangulation). We then observe that this already implies the existence of a flag simplicial polytope generalizing the dual associahedron, whose Stanley-Reisner ideal is an initial ideal of the Graßmann-Plücker ideal, while previous constructions of such a polytope did not guarantee flagness nor reduced to the dual associahedron for k=2. On our way we provide general results about order polytopes and their triangulations. We call the simplicial complex the noncrossing complex, and the polytope derived from it the dual Graßmann associahedron. We extend results of Petersen, Pylyavskyy, Speyer (2010) showing that the non-crossing complex and the Graßmann associahedron naturally reflect the relations between Graßmannians with different parameters, in particular the isomorphism $G_{k,n} \cong G_{n-k,n}$. Moreover, our approach allows us to show that the adjacency graph of the noncrossing complex admits a natural acyclic orientation that allows us to define a Graßmann-Tamari order on maximal noncrossing families. Finally, we look at the precise relation of the noncrossing complex and the weak separability complex of Leclerc, Zelevinsky (1998) and show that the weak separability complex is the cyclically invariant part of the noncrossibg complex.

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arXiv2013

Many non-equivalent realizations of the associahedron

Hohlweg and Lange (2007) and Santos (2004, unpublished) have found two different ways of constructing exponential families of realizations of the n-dimensional associahedron with normal vectors in {0,1,-1}^n, generalizing the constructions of Loday (2004) and Chapoton-Fomin-Zelevinsky (2002). We classify the associahedra obtained by these constructions modulo linear equivalence of their normal fans and show, in particular, that the only realization that can be obtained with both methods is the Chapoton-Fomin-Zelevinsky (2002) associahedron. For the Hohlweg-Lange associahedra our classification is a priori coarser than the classification up to isometry of normal fans, by Bergeron-Hohlweg-Lange-Thomas (2009). However, both yield the same classes. As a consequence, we get that two Hohlweg-Lange associahedra have linearly equivalent normal fans if and only if they are isometric. The Santos construction, which produces an even larger family of associahedra, appears here in print for the first time. Apart of describing it in detail we relate it with the c-cluster complexes and the denominator fans in cluster algebras of type A. A third classical construction of the associahedron, as the secondary polytope of a convex n-gon (Gelfand-Kapranov-Zelevinsky, 1990), is shown to never produce a normal fan linearly equivalent to any of the other two constructions.

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arXiv2013

On sumsets and convex hull

One classical result of Freimann gives the optimal lower bound for the cardinality of A+A if A is a d-dimensional finite set in the Euclidean d-space. Matolcsi and Ruzsa have recently generalized this lower bound to |A+kB| if B is d-dimensional, and A is contained in the convex hull of B. We characterize the equality case of the Matolcsi-Ruzsa bound. The argument is based partially on understanding triangulations of polytopes.

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arXiv2013

Recent progress on the combinatorial diameter of polytopes and simplicial complexes

The Hirsch conjecture, posed in 1957, stated that the graph of a $d$-dimensional polytope or polyhedron with $n$ facets cannot have diameter greater than $n - d$. The conjecture itself has been disproved, but what we know about the underlying question is quite scarce. Most notably, no polynomial upper bound is known for the diameters that were conjectured to be linear. In contrast, no polyhedron violating the conjecture by more than 25% is known. This paper reviews several recent attempts and progress on the question. Some work in the world of polyhedra or (more often) bounded polytopes, but some try to shed light on the question by generalizing it to simplicial complexes. In particular, we include here our recent and previously unpublished proof that the maximum diameter of arbitrary simplicial complexes is in $n^{Theta(d)}$ and we summarize the main ideas in the polymath 3 project, a web-based collective effort trying to prove an upper bound of type nd for the diameters of polyhedra and of more general objects (including, e. g., simplicial manifolds).

math.CO↗

arXiv2013

Few smooth d-polytopes with n lattice points

We prove that, for fixed n there exist only finitely many embeddings of Q-factorial toric varieties X into P^n that are induced by a complete linear system. The proof is based on a combinatorial result that for fixed nonnegative integers d and n, there are only finitely many smooth d-polytopes with n lattice points. We also enumerate all smooth 3-polytopes with at most 12 lattice points. In fact, it is sufficient to bound the singularities and the number of lattice points on edges to prove finiteness.

math.AG↗

arXiv2013

The width of 5-dimensional prismatoids

Santos' construction of counter-examples to the Hirsch Conjecture (2012) is based on the existence of prismatoids of dimension d of width greater than d. Santos, Stephen and Thomas (2012) have shown that this cannot occur in $d \le 4$. Motivated by this we here study the width of 5-dimensional prismatoids, obtaining the following results: - There are 5-prismatoids of width six with only 25 vertices, versus the 48 vertices in Santos' original construction. This leads to non-Hirsch polytopes of dimension 20, rather than the original dimension 43. - There are 5-prismatoids with $n$ vertices and width $Ω(\sqrt{n})$ for arbitrarily large $n$. Hence, the width of 5-prismatoids is unbounded.

math.CO↗

arXiv2013

Unimodular triangulations of dilated 3-polytopes

A seminal result in the theory of toric varieties, due to Knudsen, Mumford and Waterman (1973), asserts that for every lattice polytope $P$ there is a positive integer $k$ such that the dilated polytope $kP$ has a unimodular triangulation. In dimension 3, Kantor and Sarkaria (2003) have shown that $k=4$ works for every polytope. But this does not imply that every $k>4$ works as well. We here study the values of $k$ for which the result holds showing that: 1. It contains all composite numbers. 2. It is an additive semigroup. These two properties imply that the only values of $k$ that may not work (besides 1 and 2, which are known not to work) are $k\in\{3,5,7,11\}$. With an ad-hoc construction we show that $k=7$ and $k=11$ also work, except in this case the triangulation cannot be guaranteed to be "standard" in the boundary. All in all, the only open cases are $k=3$ and $k=5$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2012

Some acyclic systems of permutations are not realizable by triangulations of a product of simplices

The acyclic system conjecture of Ardila and Ceballos can be interpreted as saying the following: "Every triangulation of the 3-skeleton of a product of two simplices can be extended to a triangulation of the whole product". We show a counter-example to this. Motivation for this conjecture comes from a related conjecture, the "spread-out simplices" conjecture of Ardila and Billey. We give some necessary conditions that counter-examples to this second conjecture (if they exist) must satisfy.

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arXiv2011

The brick polytope of a sorting network

The associahedron is a polytope whose graph is the graph of flips on triangulations of a convex polygon. Pseudotriangulations and multitriangulations generalize triangulations in two different ways, which have been unified by Pilaud and Pocchiola in their study of flip graphs on pseudoline arrangements with contacts supported by a given sorting network. In this paper, we construct the brick polytope of a sorting network, obtained as the convex hull of the brick vectors associated to each pseudoline arrangement supported by the network. We combinatorially characterize the vertices of this polytope, describe its faces, and decompose it as a Minkowski sum of matroid polytopes. Our brick polytopes include Hohlweg and Lange's many realizations of the associahedron, which arise as brick polytopes for certain well-chosen sorting networks. We furthermore discuss the brick polytopes of sorting networks supporting pseudoline arrangements which correspond to multitriangulations of convex polygons: our polytopes only realize subgraphs of the flip graphs on multitriangulations and they cannot appear as projections of a hypothetical multiassociahedron.

math.CO↗

arXiv2011

A counterexample to the Hirsch conjecture

The Hirsch Conjecture (1957) stated that the graph of a $d$-dimensional polytope with $n$ facets cannot have (combinatorial) diameter greater than $n-d$. That is, that any two vertices of the polytope can be connected by a path of at most $n-d$ edges. This paper presents the first counterexample to the conjecture. Our polytope has dimension 43 and 86 facets. It is obtained from a 5-dimensional polytope with 48 facets which violates a certain generalization of the $d$-step conjecture of Klee and Walkup.

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