Associahedra via spines

An associahedron is a polytope whose vertices correspond to triangulations of a convex polygon and whose edges correspond to flips between them. Using labeled polygons, C. Hohlweg and C. Lange constructed various realizations of the associahedron with relevant properties related to the symmetric group and the classical permutahedron. We introduce the spine of a triangulation as its dual tree together with a labeling and an orientation. This notion extends the classical understanding of the associahedron via binary trees, introduces a new perspective on C. Hohlweg and C. Lange's construction closer to J.-L. Loday's original approach, and sheds light upon the combinatorial and geometric properties of the resulting realizations of the associahedron. It also leads to noteworthy proofs which shorten and simplify previous approaches.Comment: 27 pages, 11 figures. Version 5: minor correction

The Cambrian Hopf Algebra

Cambrian trees are oriented and labeled trees which fulfill local conditions around each node generalizing the conditions for classical binary search trees. Based on the bijective correspondence between signed permutations and leveled Cambrian trees, we define the Cambrian Hopf algebra generalizing J.-L. Loday and M. Ronco’s algebra on binary trees. We describe combinatorially the products and coproducts of both the Cambrian algebra and its dual in terms of operations on Cambrian trees. Finally, we define multiplicative bases of the Cambrian algebra and study structural and combinatorial properties of their indecomposable elements

Diameters and geodesic properties of generalizations of the associahedron

The $n$-dimensional associahedron is a polytope whose vertices correspond to triangulations of a convex $(n + 3)$-gon and whose edges are flips between them. It was recently shown that the diameter of this polytope is $2n - 4$ as soon as $n > 9$. We study the diameters of the graphs of relevant generalizations of the associahedron: on the one hand the generalized associahedra arising from cluster algebras, and on the other hand the graph associahedra and nestohedra. Related to the diameter, we investigate the non-leaving-face property for these polytopes, which asserts that every geodesic connecting two vertices in the graph of the polytope stays in the minimal face containing both

Polytopality and Cartesian products of graphs

We study the question of polytopality of graphs: when is a given graph the graph of a polytope? We first review the known necessary conditions for a graph to be polytopal, and we provide several families of graphs which satisfy all these conditions, but which nonetheless are not graphs of polytopes. Our main contribution concerns the polytopality of Cartesian products of non-polytopal graphs. On the one hand, we show that products of simple polytopes are the only simple polytopes whose graph is a product. On the other hand, we provide a general method to construct (non-simple) polytopal products whose factors are not polytopal.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figure

Multi-triangulations as complexes of star polygons

Maximal $(k+1)$-crossing-free graphs on a planar point set in convex position, that is, $k$-triangulations, have received attention in recent literature, with motivation coming from several interpretations of them. We introduce a new way of looking at $k$-triangulations, namely as complexes of star polygons. With this tool we give new, direct, proofs of the fundamental properties of $k$-triangulations, as well as some new results. This interpretation also opens-up new avenues of research, that we briefly explore in the last section.Comment: 40 pages, 24 figures; added references, update Section

Subword complexes, cluster complexes, and generalized multi-associahedra

In this paper, we use subword complexes to provide a uniform approach to finite type cluster complexes and multi-associahedra. We introduce, for any finite Coxeter group and any nonnegative integer k, a spherical subword complex called multi-cluster complex. For k=1, we show that this subword complex is isomorphic to the cluster complex of the given type. We show that multi-cluster complexes of types A and B coincide with known simplicial complexes, namely with the simplicial complexes of multi-triangulations and centrally symmetric multi-triangulations respectively. Furthermore, we show that the multi-cluster complex is universal in the sense that every spherical subword complex can be realized as a link of a face of the multi-cluster complex.Comment: 26 pages, 3 Tables, 2 Figures; final versio

Many non-equivalent realizations of the associahedron

Hohlweg and Lange (2007) and Santos (2004, unpublished) have found two different ways of constructing exponential families of realizations of the n-dimensional associahedron with normal vectors in {0,1,-1}^n, generalizing the constructions of Loday (2004) and Chapoton-Fomin-Zelevinsky (2002). We classify the associahedra obtained by these constructions modulo linear equivalence of their normal fans and show, in particular, that the only realization that can be obtained with both methods is the Chapoton-Fomin-Zelevinsky (2002) associahedron. For the Hohlweg-Lange associahedra our classification is a priori coarser than the classification up to isometry of normal fans, by Bergeron-Hohlweg-Lange-Thomas (2009). However, both yield the same classes. As a consequence, we get that two Hohlweg-Lange associahedra have linearly equivalent normal fans if and only if they are isometric. The Santos construction, which produces an even larger family of associahedra, appears here in print for the first time. Apart of describing it in detail we relate it with the c-cluster complexes and the denominator fans in cluster algebras of type A. A third classical construction of the associahedron, as the secondary polytope of a convex n-gon (Gelfand-Kapranov-Zelevinsky, 1990), is shown to never produce a normal fan linearly equivalent to any of the other two constructions.Comment: 30 pages, 13 figure

Computing pseudotriangulations via branched coverings

We describe an efficient algorithm to compute a pseudotriangulation of a finite planar family of pairwise disjoint convex bodies presented by its chirotope. The design of the algorithm relies on a deepening of the theory of visibility complexes and on the extension of that theory to the setting of branched coverings. The problem of computing a pseudotriangulation that contains a given set of bitangent line segments is also examined.Comment: 66 pages, 39 figure

The Cambrian Hopf Algebra

Cambrian trees are oriented and labeled trees which fulfill local conditions around each node generalizing the conditions for classical binary search trees. Based on the bijective correspondence between signed permutations and leveled Cambrian trees, we define the Cambrian Hopf algebra generalizing J.-L. Loday and M. Ronco’s algebra on binary trees. We describe combinatorially the products and coproducts of both the Cambrian algebra and its dual in terms of operations on Cambrian trees. Finally, we define multiplicative bases of the Cambrian algebra and study structural and combinatorial properties of their indecomposable elements.Les arbres Cambriens sont des arbres orientés et étiquetés qui satisfont des conditions locales autour de leurs nœuds généralisant les conditions des arbres binaires de recherche classiques. A partir de la correspondence bijective entre permutations signées et arbres Cambriens à niveau, nous définissons l’algèbre Cambrienne qui généralise l’algèbre sur les arbres binaires de J.-L. Loday et M. Ronco. Nous donnons une description combinatoire du produit et du coproduit aussi bien dans l’algèbre Cambrienne que dans sa duale en termes d’opérations sur les arbres Cambriens. Enfin, nous définissons des bases multiplicatives de l’algèbre Cambrienne et étudions les propriétés structurelles et énumératives de leurs éléments indécomposables

Diameters and geodesic properties of generalizations of the associahedron

The $n$-dimensional associahedron is a polytope whose vertices correspond to triangulations of a convex $(n + 3)$-gon and whose edges are flips between them. It was recently shown that the diameter of this polytope is $2n - 4$ as soon as $n > 9$. We study the diameters of the graphs of relevant generalizations of the associahedron: on the one hand the generalized associahedra arising from cluster algebras, and on the other hand the graph associahedra and nestohedra. Related to the diameter, we investigate the non-leaving-face property for these polytopes, which asserts that every geodesic connecting two vertices in the graph of the polytope stays in the minimal face containing both.L’associaèdre de dimension $n$ est un polytope dont les sommets correspondent aux triangulations d’un $(n + 3)$-gone convexe et dont les arêtes sont les échanges entre ces triangulations. Il a été récemment démontré que le diamètre de ce polytope est $2n - 4$ dès que $n > 9$. Nous étudions les diamètres des graphes de certaines généralisations de l’associaèdre : d’une part les associaèdres généralisés provenant des algèbres amassées, et d’autre part les associaèdres de graphes et les nestoèdres. En lien avec le diamètre, nous étudions si toutes les géodésiques entre deux sommets de ces polytopes restent dans la plus petite face les contenant