Equivariant semidefinite lifts of regular polygons

Given a polytope P in $\mathbb{R}^n$, we say that P has a positive semidefinite lift (psd lift) of size d if one can express P as the linear projection of an affine slice of the positive semidefinite cone $\mathbf{S}^d_+$. If a polytope P has symmetry, we can consider equivariant psd lifts, i.e. those psd lifts that respect the symmetry of P. One of the simplest families of polytopes with interesting symmetries are regular polygons in the plane, which have played an important role in the study of linear programming lifts (or extended formulations). In this paper we study equivariant psd lifts of regular polygons. We first show that the standard Lasserre/sum-of-squares hierarchy for the regular N-gon requires exactly ceil(N/4) iterations and thus yields an equivariant psd lift of size linear in N. In contrast we show that one can construct an equivariant psd lift of the regular 2^n-gon of size 2n-1, which is exponentially smaller than the psd lift of the sum-of-squares hierarchy. Our construction relies on finding a sparse sum-of-squares certificate for the facet-defining inequalities of the regular 2^n-gon, i.e., one that only uses a small (logarithmic) number of monomials. Since any equivariant LP lift of the regular 2^n-gon must have size 2^n, this gives the first example of a polytope with an exponential gap between sizes of equivariant LP lifts and equivariant psd lifts. Finally we prove that our construction is essentially optimal by showing that any equivariant psd lift of the regular N-gon must have size at least logarithmic in N.Comment: 29 page

On the Gromov width of polygon spaces

For generic $r=(r_1,\ldots,r_n) \in \mathbb{R}^n_+$ the space $\mathcal{M}(r)$ of $n$--gons in $\mathbb{R}^3$ with edges of lengths $r$ is a smooth, symplectic manifold. We investigate its Gromov width and prove that the expression $$2\pi \min \{2 r_j, (\sum_{i \neq j} r_i) - r_j\,\,|\, j=1,\ldots,n\}$$ is the Gromov width of all (smooth) $5$--gon spaces and of $6$--gon spaces, under some condition on $r \in \mathbb{R}^6_+$. The same formula constitutes a lower bound for all (smooth) spaces of $6$--gons. Moreover, we prove that the Gromov width of $\mathcal{M}(r)$ is given by the above expression when $\mathcal{M}(r)$ is symplectomorphic to $\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}^{n-3}$, for any $n \geq 4$.Comment: 39 pages, 14 figures, to appear on Transformation Group

Systematic analysis of transverse momentum distribution and non-extensive thermodynamics theory

A systematic analysis of transverse momentum distribution of hadrons produced in ultra-relativistic $p+p$ and $A+A$ collisions is presented. We investigate the effective temperature and the entropic parameter from the non-extensive thermodynamic theory of strong interaction. We conclude that the existence of a limiting effective temperature and of a limiting entropic parameter is in accordance with experimental data.Comment: 7 pages, XII Hadron Physics Conference, Bento Gon\c{c}alves - Brazi

Which point sets admit a k-angulation?

For k >= 3, a k-angulation is a 2-connected plane graph in which every internal face is a k-gon. We say that a point set P admits a plane graph G if there is a straight-line drawing of G that maps V(G) onto P and has the same facial cycles and outer face as G. We investigate the conditions under which a point set P admits a k-angulation and find that, for sets containing at least 2k^2 points, the only obstructions are those that follow from Euler's formula.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figure