Splitting Polytopes

A split of a polytope $P$ is a (regular) subdivision with exactly two maximal cells. It turns out that each weight function on the vertices of $P$ admits a unique decomposition as a linear combination of weight functions corresponding to the splits of $P$ (with a split prime remainder). This generalizes a result of Bandelt and Dress [Adv. Math. 92 (1992)] on the decomposition of finite metric spaces. Introducing the concept of compatibility of splits gives rise to a finite simplicial complex associated with any polytope $P$, the split complex of $P$. Complete descriptions of the split complexes of all hypersimplices are obtained. Moreover, it is shown that these complexes arise as subcomplexes of the tropical (pre-)Grassmannians of Speyer and Sturmfels [Adv. Geom. 4 (2004)].Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures; minor corrections and change

How regular can maxitive measures be?

We examine domain-valued maxitive measures defined on the Borel subsets of a topological space. Several characterizations of regularity of maxitive measures are proved, depending on the structure of the topological space. Since every regular maxitive measure is completely maxitive, this yields sufficient conditions for the existence of a cardinal density. We also show that every outer-continuous maxitive measure can be decomposed as the supremum of a regular maxitive measure and a maxitive measure that vanishes on compact subsets under appropriate conditions.Comment: 24 page

Infinitely many universally tight contact manifolds with trivial Ozsvath-Szabo contact invariants

In this article we present infinitely many 3-manifolds admitting infinitely many universally tight contact structures each with trivial Ozsvath-Szabo contact invariants. By known properties of these invariants the contact structures constructed here are non weakly symplectically fillable.Comment: This is the version published by Geometry & Topology on 2 April 200