New inequalities for subspace arrangements

For each positive integer $n \geq 4$, we give an inequality satisfied by rank functions of arrangements of $n$ subspaces. When $n=4$ we recover Ingleton's inequality; for higher $n$ the inequalities are all new. These inequalities can be thought of as a hierarchy of necessary conditions for a (poly)matroid to be realizable. Some related open questions about the "cone of realizable polymatroids" are also presented.Comment: 10 pages, comments welcome. v2: correction to proof of Prop. 3, improved "Future directions" section, other minor improvements. v3: final version, minor change

Obstructions to determinantal representability

There has recently been ample interest in the question of which sets can be represented by linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). A necessary condition is that the set is rigidly convex, and it has been conjectured that rigid convexity is also sufficient. To this end Helton and Vinnikov conjectured that any real zero polynomial admits a determinantal representation with symmetric matrices. We disprove this conjecture. By relating the question of finding LMI representations to the problem of determining whether a polymatroid is representable over the complex numbers, we find a real zero polynomial such that no power of it admits a determinantal representation. The proof uses recent results of Wagner and Wei on matroids with the half-plane property, and the polymatroids associated to hyperbolic polynomials introduced by Gurvits.Comment: 10 pages. To appear in Advances in Mathematic

On densities of lattice arrangements intersecting every i-dimensional affine subspace

In 1978, Makai Jr. established a remarkable connection between the volume-product of a convex body, its maximal lattice packing density and the minimal density of a lattice arrangement of its polar body intersecting every affine hyperplane. Consequently, he formulated a conjecture that can be seen as a dual analog of Minkowski's fundamental theorem, and which is strongly linked to the well-known Mahler-conjecture. Based on the covering minima of Kannan & Lov\'asz and a problem posed by Fejes T\'oth, we arrange Makai Jr.'s conjecture into a wider context and investigate densities of lattice arrangements of convex bodies intersecting every i-dimensional affine subspace. Then it becomes natural also to formulate and study a dual analog to Minkowski's second fundamental theorem. As our main results, we derive meaningful asymptotic lower bounds for the densities of such arrangements, and furthermore, we solve the problems exactly for the special, yet important, class of unconditional convex bodies.Comment: 19 page

Affine and toric hyperplane arrangements

We extend the Billera-Ehrenborg-Readdy map between the intersection lattice and face lattice of a central hyperplane arrangement to affine and toric hyperplane arrangements. For arrangements on the torus, we also generalize Zaslavsky's fundamental results on the number of regions.Comment: 32 pages, 4 figure