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1. Generalized Parking Function Polytopes

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s00026-023-00671-1  

   Hanada, Mitsuki; Lentfer, John; Vindas-Meléndez, Andrés_R (November 2023, Annals of Combinatorics)

   Abstract A classical parking function of lengthnis a list of positive integers$$(a_1, a_2, \ldots , a_n)$$ $(a_1,a_2,\dots ,a_n)$whose nondecreasing rearrangement$$b_1 \le b_2 \le \cdots \le b_n$$ $b_1\le b_2\le \cdots \le b_n$satisfies$$b_i \le i$$ $b_i\le i$. The convex hull of all parking functions of lengthnis ann-dimensional polytope in$${\mathbb {R}}^n$$ $R^n$, which we refer to as the classical parking function polytope. Its geometric properties have been explored in Amanbayeva and Wang (Enumer Combin Appl 2(2):Paper No. S2R10, 10, 2022) in response to a question posed by Stanley (Amer Math Mon 127(6):563–571, 2020). We generalize this family of polytopes by studying the geometric properties of the convex hull of$${\textbf{x}}$$ $x$-parking functions for$${\textbf{x}}=(a,b,\dots ,b)$$ $x=(a,b,\cdots ,b)$, which we refer to as$${\textbf{x}}$$ $x$-parking function polytopes. We explore connections between these$${\textbf{x}}$$ $x$-parking function polytopes, the Pitman–Stanley polytope, and the partial permutahedra of Heuer and Striker (SIAM J Discrete Math 36(4):2863–2888, 2022). In particular, we establish a closed-form expression for the volume of$${\textbf{x}}$$ $x$-parking function polytopes. This allows us to answer a conjecture of Behrend et al. (2022) and also obtain a new closed-form expression for the volume of the convex hull of classical parking functions as a corollary. 

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2. Chvátal Rank in Binary Polynomial Optimization

   https://doi.org/10.1287/ijoo.2019.0049  

   Del Pia, Alberto; Di Gregorio, Silvia (October 2021, INFORMS Journal on Optimization)

   Recently, several classes of cutting planes have been introduced for binary polynomial optimization. In this paper, we present the first results connecting the combinatorial structure of these inequalities with their Chvátal rank. We determine the Chvátal rank of all known cutting planes and show that almost all of them have Chvátal rank 1. We observe that these inequalities have an associated hypergraph that is β-acyclic. Our second goal is to derive deeper cutting planes; to do so, we consider hypergraphs that admit β-cycles. We introduce a novel class of valid inequalities arising from odd β-cycles, that generally have Chvátal rank 2. These inequalities allow us to obtain the first characterization of the multilinear polytope for hypergraphs that contain β-cycles. Namely, we show that the multilinear polytope for cycle hypergraphs is given by the standard linearization inequalities, flower inequalities, and odd β-cycle inequalities. We also prove that odd β-cycle inequalities can be separated in linear time when the hypergraph is a cycle hypergraph. This shows that instances represented by cycle hypergraphs can be solved in polynomial time. Last, to test the strength of odd β-cycle inequalities, we perform numerical experiments that imply that they close a significant percentage of the integrality gap. 

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3. Root Cones and the Resonance Arrangement

   https://doi.org/10.37236/8759  

   Gutekunst, Samuel C.; Mészáros, Karola; Petersen, T. Kyle (January 2021, The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics)

   null (Ed.)

   We study the connection between triangulations of a type $$A$$ root polytope and the resonance arrangement, a hyperplane arrangement that shows up in a surprising number of contexts. Despite an elementary definition for the resonance arrangement, the number of resonance chambers has only been computed up to the $n=8$ dimensional case. We focus on data structures for labeling chambers, such as sign vectors and sets of alternating trees, with an aim at better understanding the structure of the resonance arrangement, and, in particular, enumerating its chambers. Along the way, we make connections with similar (and similarly difficult) enumeration questions. With the root polytope viewpoint, we relate resonance chambers to the chambers of polynomiality of the Kostant partition function. With the hyperplane viewpoint, we clarify the connections between resonance chambers and threshold functions. In particular, we show that the base-2 logarithm of the number of resonance chambers is asymptotically $n^2$. 

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4. Ehrhart theory of paving and panhandle matroids

   https://doi.org/10.1515/advgeom-2023-0020  

   Hanely, Derek; Martin, Jeremy L.; McGinnis, Daniel; Miyata, Dane; Nasr, George D.; Vindas-Meléndez, Andrés R.; Yin, Mei (October 2023, Advances in Geometry)

   Abstract We show that the base polytopeP_Mof any paving matroidMcan be systematically obtained from a hypersimplex by slicing off certain subpolytopes, namely base polytopes of lattice path matroids corresponding to panhandle-shaped Ferrers diagrams. We calculate the Ehrhart polynomials of these matroids and consequently write down the Ehrhart polynomial ofP_M, starting with Katzman’s formula for the Ehrhart polynomial of a hypersimplex. The method builds on and generalizes Ferroni’s work on sparse paving matroids. Combinatorially, our construction corresponds to constructing a uniform matroid from a paving matroid by iterating the operation ofstressed-hyperplane relaxationintroduced by Ferroni, Nasr and Vecchi, which generalizes the standard matroid-theoretic notion of circuit-hyperplane relaxation. We present evidence that panhandle matroids are Ehrhart positive and describe a conjectured combinatorial formula involving chain forests and Eulerian numbers from which Ehrhart positivity of panhandle matroids will follow. As an application of the main result, we calculate the Ehrhart polynomials of matroids associated with Steiner systems and finite projective planes, and show that they depend only on their design-theoretic parameters: for example, while projective planes of the same order need not have isomorphic matroids, their base polytopes must be Ehrhart equivalent. 

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5. Computing Reeb dynamics on four-dimensional convex polytopes

   https://doi.org/10.3934/jcd.2021016  

   Chaidez, Julian; Hutchings, Michael (January 2021, Journal of Computational Dynamics)

   null (Ed.)

   We study the combinatorial Reeb flow on the boundary of a four-dimensional convex polytope. We establish a correspondence between "combinatorial Reeb orbits" for a polytope, and ordinary Reeb orbits for a smoothing of the polytope, respecting action and Conley-Zehnder index. One can then use a computer to find all combinatorial Reeb orbits up to a given action and Conley-Zehnder index. We present some results of experiments testing Viterbo's conjecture and related conjectures. In particular, we have found some new examples of polytopes with systolic ratio \begin{document}$ 1 $$\end{document}$. 

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