Polytopal linear algebra

We investigate similarities between the category of vector spaces and that of polytopal algebras, containing the former as a full subcategory. In Section 2 we introduce the notion of a polytopal Picard group and show that it is trivial for fields. The coincidence of this group with the ordinary Picard group for general rings remains an open question. In Section 3 we survey some of the previous results on the automorphism groups and retractions. These results support a general conjecture proposed in Section 4 about the nature of arbitrary homomorphisms of polytopal algebras. Thereafter a further confirmation of this conjecture is presented by homomorphisms defined on Veronese singularities. This is a continuation of the project started in our papers "Polytopal linear groups" (J. Algebra 218 (1999), 715--737), "Polytopal linear retractions" preprint, math.AG/0001049) and "Polyhedral algebras, arrangements of toric varieties, and their groups" (preprint, http://www.mathematik.uni-osnabrueck.de/K-theory/0232/index.html). The higher $K$-theoretic aspects of polytopal linear objects will be treated in "Polyhedral $K$-theory" (in preparation).Comment: 21 pages, uses pstricks and P. Taylor's CD package. Beitr. Algebra Geom., to appea

Supertropical linear algebra

The objective of this paper is to lay out the algebraic theory of supertropical vector spaces and linear algebra, utilizing the key antisymmetric relation of ``ghost surpasses.''Special attention is paid to the various notions of ``base,'' which include d-base and s-base, and these are compared to other treatments in the tropical theory. Whereas the number of elements in a d-base may vary according to the d-base, it is shown that when an s-base exists, it is unique up to permutation and multiplication by scalars, and can be identified with a set of ``critical'' elements. Linear functionals and the dual space are also studied, leading to supertropical bilinear forms and a supertropical version of the Gram matrix, including its connection to linear dependence, as well as a supertropical version of a theorem of Artin.Comment: 28 page