Ehrhart h∗h^*-vectors of hypersimplices

We consider the Ehrhart $h^*$-vector for the hypersimplex. It is well-known that the sum of the $h_i^*$ is the normalized volume which equals an Eulerian numbers. The main result is a proof of a conjecture by R. Stanley which gives an interpretation of the $h^*_i$ coefficients in terms of descents and excedances. Our proof is geometric using a careful book-keeping of a shelling of a unimodular triangulation. We generalize this result to other closely related polytopes

Morse Matchings on a Hypersimplex

We present a family of complete acyclic Morse matchings on the face lattice of a hypersimplex. Since a hypersimplex is a convex polytope, there is a natural way to form a CW complex from its faces. In a future paper we will utilize these matchings to classify every subcomplex whose reduced homology groups are concentrated in a single degree and describe a homology basis for each of them.Comment: part of phD thesis arXiv:1108.6001. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:0806.1503 by other author

Positive configuration space

We define and study the totally nonnegative part of the Chow quotient of the Grassmannian, or more simply the nonnegative configuration space. This space has a natural stratification by positive Chow cells, and we show that nonnegative configuration space is homeomorphic to a polytope as a stratified space. We establish bijections between positive Chow cells and the following sets: (a) regular subdivisions of the hypersimplex into positroid polytopes, (b) the set of cones in the positive tropical Grassmannian, and (c) the set of cones in the positive Dressian. Our work is motivated by connections to super Yang-Mills scattering amplitudes, which will be discussed in a sequel.Comment: 46 pages; citations adde

The EtE_t-Construction for Lattices, Spheres and Polytopes

We describe and analyze a new construction that produces new Eulerian lattices from old ones. It specializes to a construction that produces new strongly regular cellular spheres (whose face lattices are Eulerian). The construction does not always specialize to convex polytopes; however, in a number of cases where we can realize it, it produces interesting classes of polytopes. Thus we produce an infinite family of rational 2-simplicial 2-simple 4-polytopes, as requested by Eppstein, Kuperberg and Ziegler. We also construct for each $d\ge3$ an infinite family of $(d-2)$-simplicial 2-simple $d$-polytopes, thus solving a problem of Gr\"unbaum.Comment: 21 pages, many figure

Unimodality Problems in Ehrhart Theory

Ehrhart theory is the study of sequences recording the number of integer points in non-negative integral dilates of rational polytopes. For a given lattice polytope, this sequence is encoded in a finite vector called the Ehrhart $h^*$-vector. Ehrhart $h^*$-vectors have connections to many areas of mathematics, including commutative algebra and enumerative combinatorics. In this survey we discuss what is known about unimodality for Ehrhart $h^*$-vectors and highlight open questions and problems.Comment: Published in Recent Trends in Combinatorics, Beveridge, A., et al. (eds), Springer, 2016, pp 687-711, doi 10.1007/978-3-319-24298-9_27. This version updated October 2017 to correct an error in the original versio