arXiv subjects

Luis Ferroni

Publications and source records attributed to Luis Ferroni.

41 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

Matroids are not Ehrhart positive

In this article we disprove the conjectures asserting the positivity of the coefficients of the Ehrhart polynomial of matroid polytopes by De Loera, Haws and Köppe (2007) and of generalized permutohedra by Castillo and Liu (2015). We prove constructively that for every $n\geq 19$ there exist connected matroids on $n$ elements that are not Ehrhart positive. Also, we prove that for every $k\geq 3$ there exist connected matroids of rank $k$ that are not Ehrhart positive. Our proofs rely on our previous results on the geometric interpretation of the operation of circuit-hyperplane relaxation and our formulas for the Ehrhart polynomials of hypersimplices and minimal matroids. This allows us to give a precise expression for the Ehrhart polynomials of all sparse paving matroids, a class of matroids which is conjectured to be predominant and which contains the counterexamples arising from our construction.

math.CO↗

arXiv2022

Ehrhart polynomials of rank two matroids

Over a decade ago De Loera, Haws and Köppe conjectured that Ehrhart polynomials of matroid polytopes have only positive coefficients and that the coefficients of the corresponding $h^*$-polynomials form a unimodal sequence. The first of these intensively studied conjectures has recently been disproved by the first author who gave counterexamples in all ranks greater or equal to three. In this article we complete the picture by showing that Ehrhart polynomials of matroids of lower rank have indeed only positive coefficients. Moreover, we show that they are coefficient-wise bounded by the Ehrhart polynomials of minimal and uniform matroids. We furthermore address the second conjecture by proving that $h^*$-polynomials of matroid polytopes of sparse paving matroids of rank two are real-rooted and therefore have log-concave and unimodal coefficients. In particular, this shows that the $h^*$-polynomial of the second hypersimplex is real-rooted thereby strengthening a result of De Loera, Haws and Köppe.

math.CO↗

arXiv2021

On the Ehrhart Polynomial of Minimal Matroids

We provide a formula for the Ehrhart polynomial of the connected matroid of size $n$ and rank $k$ with the least number of bases, also known as a minimal matroid. We prove that their polytopes are Ehrhart positive and $h^*$-real-rooted (and hence unimodal). We prove that the operation of circuit-hyperplane relaxation relates minimal matroids and matroid polytopes subdivisions, and also preserves Ehrhart positivity. We state two conjectures: that indeed all matroids are $h^*$-real-rooted, and that the coefficients of the Ehrhart polynomial of a connected matroid of fixed rank and cardinality are bounded by those of the corresponding minimal matroid and the corresponding uniform matroid.

math.CO↗

arXiv2020

Integer point enumeration on independence polytopes and half-open hypersimplices

In this paper we investigate the Ehrhart Theory of the independence matroid polytope of uniform matroids. It is proved that these polytopes have an Ehrhart polynomial with positive coefficients. To do that, we prove that indeed all half-open-hypersimplices are Ehrhart positive, and tile disjointly our polytope using them.

math.CO↗

arXiv2020

Hypersimplices are Ehrhart Positive

We consider the Ehrhart polynomial of hypersimplices. It is proved that these polynomials have positive coefficients and we give a combinatorial formula for each of them. This settles a problem posed by Stanley and also proves that uniform matroids are Ehrhart positive, an important and yet unsolved particular case of a conjecture posed by De Loera et al. To this end, we introduce a new family of numbers that we call weighted Lah numbers and study some of their properties.

math.CO↗