Convex lattice polygonal lines with a constrained number of vertices

A detailed combinatorial analysis of planar convex lattice polygonal lines is presented. This makes it possible to answer an open question of Vershik regarding the existence of a limit shape when the number of vertices is constrained

Convex cones, integral zonotopes, limit shape

This paper is about integral zonotopes. It is proven that large zonotopes in a convex cone have a limit shape, meaning that, after suitable scaling, the overwhelming majority of the zonotopes are very close to a fixed convex set. Several combinatorial properties of large zonotopes are established

Non-crossing frameworks with non-crossing reciprocals

We study non-crossing frameworks in the plane for which the classical reciprocal on the dual graph is also non-crossing. We give a complete description of the self-stresses on non-crossing frameworks whose reciprocals are non-crossing, in terms of: the types of faces (only pseudo-triangles and pseudo-quadrangles are allowed); the sign patterns in the self-stress; and a geometric condition on the stress vectors at some of the vertices. As in other recent papers where the interplay of non-crossingness and rigidity of straight-line plane graphs is studied, pseudo-triangulations show up as objects of special interest. For example, it is known that all planar Laman circuits can be embedded as a pseudo-triangulation with one non-pointed vertex. We show that if such an embedding is sufficiently generic, then the reciprocal is non-crossing and again a pseudo-triangulation embedding of a planar Laman circuit. For a singular (i.e., non-generic) pseudo-triangulation embedding of a planar Laman circuit, the reciprocal is still non-crossing and a pseudo-triangulation, but its underlying graph may not be a Laman circuit. Moreover, all the pseudo-triangulations which admit a non-crossing reciprocal arise as the reciprocals of such, possibly singular, stresses on pseudo-triangulation embeddings of Laman circuits. All self-stresses on a planar graph correspond to liftings to piece-wise linear surfaces in 3-space. We prove characteristic geometric properties of the lifts of such non-crossing reciprocal pairs.Comment: 32 pages, 23 figure

Universality of the limit shape of convex lattice polygonal lines

Let ${\varPi}_n$ be the set of convex polygonal lines $\varGamma$ with vertices on $\mathbb {Z}_+^2$ and fixed endpoints $0=(0,0)$ and $n=(n_1,n_2)$. We are concerned with the limit shape, as $n\to\infty$, of "typical" $\varGamma\in {\varPi}_n$ with respect to a parametric family of probability measures $\{P_n^r,0<r<\infty\}$ on ${\varPi}_n$, including the uniform distribution ($r=1$) for which the limit shape was found in the early 1990s independently by A. M. Vershik, I. B\'ar\'any and Ya. G. Sinai. We show that, in fact, the limit shape is universal in the class $\{P^r_n\}$, even though $P^r_n$ ($r\ne1$) and $P^1_n$ are asymptotically singular. Measures $P^r_n$ are constructed, following Sinai's approach, as conditional distributions $Q_z^r(\cdot |{\varPi}_n)$, where $Q_z^r$ are suitable product measures on the space ${\varPi}=\bigcup_n{\varPi}_n$, depending on an auxiliary "free" parameter $z=(z_1,z_2)$. The transition from $({\varPi},Q_z^r)$ to $({\varPi}_n,P_n^r)$ is based on the asymptotics of the probability $Q_z^r({\varPi}_n)$, furnished by a certain two-dimensional local limit theorem. The proofs involve subtle analytical tools including the M\"obius inversion formula and properties of zeroes of the Riemann zeta function.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOP607 the Annals of Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aop/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Fluctuations of lattice zonotopes and polygons

Following Barany et al., who proved that large random lattice zonotopes converge to a deterministic shape in any dimension after rescaling, we establish a central limit theorem for finite-dimensional marginals of the boundary of the zonotope. In dimension 2, for large random convex lattice polygons contained in a square, we prove a Donsker-type theorem for the boundary fluctuations, which involves a two-dimensional Brownian bridge and a drift term that we identify as a random cubic curve