Cubic Harmonics and Bernoulli Numbers

The functions satisfying the mean value property for an n-dimensional cube are determined explicitly. This problem is related to invariant theory for a finite reflection group, especially to a system of invariant differential equations. Solving this problem is reduced to showing that a certain set of invariant polynomials forms an invariant basis. After establishing a certain summation formula over Young diagrams, the latter problem is settled by considering a recursion formula involving Bernoulli numbers. Keywords: polyhedral harmonics; cube; reflection groups; invariant theory; invariant differential equations; generating functions; partitions; Young diagrams; Bernoulli numbers.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figure

Tropical cycles and Chow polytopes

The Chow polytope of an algebraic cycle in a torus depends only on its tropicalisation. Generalising this, we associate a Chow polytope to any abstract tropical variety in a tropicalised toric variety. Several significant polyhedra associated to tropical varieties are special cases of our Chow polytope. The Chow polytope of a tropical variety $X$ is given by a simple combinatorial construction: its normal subdivision is the Minkowski sum of $X$ and a reflected skeleton of the fan of the ambient toric variety.Comment: 22 pp, 3 figs. Added discussion of arbitrary ambient toric varieties; several improvements suggested by Eric Katz; some rearrangemen

ADE surfaces and their moduli

We define a class of surfaces corresponding to the ADE root lattices and construct compactifications of their moduli spaces as quotients of projective varieties for Coxeter fans, generalizing Losev-Manin spaces of curves. We exhibit modular families over these moduli spaces, which extend to families of stable pairs over the compactifications. One simple application is a geometric compactification of the moduli of rational elliptic surfaces that is a finite quotient of a projective toric variety.Comment: A streamlined and expanded versio