Wulff shapes and a characterization of simplices via a Bezout type inequality

Inspired by a fundamental theorem of Bernstein, Kushnirenko, and Khovanskii we study the following Bezout type inequality for mixed volumes $$V(L_1,\dots,L_{n})V_n(K)\leq V(L_1,K[{n-1}])V(L_2,\dots, L_{n},K).$$ We show that the above inequality characterizes simplices, i.e. if $K$ is a convex body satisfying the inequality for all convex bodies $L_1, \dots, L_n \subset {\mathbb R}^n$, then $K$ must be an $n$-dimensional simplex. The main idea of the proof is to study perturbations given by Wulff shapes. In particular, we prove a new theorem on differentiability of the support function of the Wulff shape, which is of independent interest. In addition, we study the Bezout inequality for mixed volumes introduced in arXiv:1507.00765 . We introduce the class of weakly decomposable convex bodies which is strictly larger than the set of all polytopes that are non-simplices. We show that the Bezout inequality in arXiv:1507.00765 characterizes weakly indecomposable convex bodies

Convex normality of rational polytopes with long edges

We introduce the property of convex normality of rational polytopes and give a dimensionally uniform lower bound for the edge lattice lengths, guaranteeing the property. As an application, we show that if every edge of a lattice d-polytope P has lattice length at least 4d(d+1) then P is normal. This answers in the positive a question raised in 2007. If P is a lattice simplex whose edges have lattice lengths at least d(d+1) then P is even covered by lattice parallelepipeds. For the approach developed here, it is necessary to involve rational polytopes even for applications to lattice polytopes.Comment: 16 pages, final version, to appear in Advances in Mathematic

Characterization of Simplices via the Bezout Inequality for Mixed volumes

We consider the following Bezout inequality for mixed volumes: $$V(K_1,\dots,K_r,\Delta[{n-r}])V_n(\Delta)^{r-1}\leq \prod_{i=1}^r V(K_i,\Delta[{n-1}])\ \text{ for }2\leq r\leq n.$$ It was shown previously that the inequality is true for any $n$-dimensional simplex $\Delta$ and any convex bodies $K_1, \dots, K_r$ in $\mathbb{R}^n$. It was conjectured that simplices are the only convex bodies for which the inequality holds for arbitrary bodies $K_1, \dots, K_r$ in $\mathbb{R}^n$. In this paper we prove that this is indeed the case if we assume that $\Delta$ is a convex polytope. Thus the Bezout inequality characterizes simplices in the class of convex $n$-polytopes. In addition, we show that if a body $\Delta$ satisfies the Bezout inequality for all bodies $K_1, \dots, K_r$ then the boundary of $\Delta$ cannot have strict points. In particular, it cannot have points with positive Gaussian curvature.Comment: 8 page