On the convex hull of a space curve

The boundary of the convex hull of a compact algebraic curve in real 3-space defines a real algebraic surface. For general curves, that boundary surface is reducible, consisting of tritangent planes and a scroll of stationary bisecants. We express the degree of this surface in terms of the degree, genus and singularities of the curve. We present algorithms for computing their defining polynomials, and we exhibit a wide range of examples.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures, minor change

Semidefinite representation of convex hulls of rational varieties

Using elementary duality properties of positive semidefinite moment matrices and polynomial sum-of-squares decompositions, we prove that the convex hull of rationally parameterized algebraic varieties is semidefinite representable (that is, it can be represented as a projection of an affine section of the cone of positive semidefinite matrices) in the case of (a) curves; (b) hypersurfaces parameterized by quadratics; and (c) hypersurfaces parameterized by bivariate quartics; all in an ambient space of arbitrary dimension

The Convex Hull of a Variety

We present a characterization, in terms of projective biduality, for the hypersurfaces appearing in the boundary of the convex hull of a compact real algebraic variety.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure

Convex hulls of curves of genus one

Let C be a real nonsingular affine curve of genus one, embedded in affine n-space, whose set of real points is compact. For any polynomial f which is nonnegative on C(R), we prove that there exist polynomials f_i with f \equiv \sum_i f_i^2 (modulo I_C) and such that the degrees deg(f_i) are bounded in terms of deg(f) only. Using Lasserre's relaxation method, we deduce an explicit representation of the convex hull of C(R) in R^n by a lifted linear matrix inequality. This is the first instance in the literature where such a representation is given for the convex hull of a nonrational variety. The same works for convex hulls of (singular) curves whose normalization is C. We then make a detailed study of the associated degree bounds. These bounds are directly related to size and dimension of the projected matrix pencils. In particular, we prove that these bounds tend to infinity when the curve C degenerates suitably into a singular curve, and we provide explicit lower bounds as well.Comment: 1 figur

Polytopes from Subgraph Statistics

Polytopes from subgraph statistics are important in applications and conjectures and theorems in extremal graph theory can be stated as properties of them. We have studied them with a view towards applications by inscribing large explicit polytopes and semi-algebraic sets when the facet descriptions are intractable. The semi-algebraic sets called curvy zonotopes are introduced and studied using graph limits. From both volume calculations and algebraic descriptions we find several interesting conjectures.Comment: Full article, 21 pages, 8 figures. Minor expository update

Algebraic Boundaries of Convex Semi-algebraic Sets

We study the algebraic boundary of a convex semi-algebraic set via duality in convex and algebraic geometry. We generalize the correspondence of facets of a polytope to the vertices of the dual polytope to general semi-algebraic convex bodies. In the general setup, exceptional families of extreme points might exist and we characterize them semi-algebraically. We also give an algorithm to compute a complete list of exceptional families, given the algebraic boundary of the dual convex set.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures; Comments welcom

Properties of a curve whose convex hull covers a given convex body

In this note, we prove the following inequality for the norm of a convex body $K$ in $\mathbb{R}^n$, $n\geq 2$: $N(K) \leq \frac{\pi^{\frac{n-1}{2}}}{2 \Gamma \left(\frac{n+1}{2}\right)}\cdot \operatorname{length} (\gamma) + \frac{\pi^{\frac{n}{2}-1}}{\Gamma \left(\frac{n}{2}\right)} \cdot \operatorname{diam}(K)$, where $\operatorname{diam}(K)$ is the diameter of $K$, $\gamma$ is any curve in $\mathbb{R}^n$ whose convex hull covers $K$, and $\Gamma$ is the gamma function. If in addition $K$ has constant width $\Theta$, then we get the inequality $\operatorname{length} (\gamma) \geq \frac{2(\pi-1)\Gamma \left(\frac{n+1}{2}\right)}{\sqrt{\pi}\,\Gamma \left(\frac{n}{2}\right)}\cdot \Theta \geq 2(\pi-1) \cdot \sqrt{\frac{n-1}{2\pi}}\cdot \Theta$. In addition, we pose several unsolved problems.Comment: 7 page