Lifted generalized permutahedra and composition polynomials

We introduce a "lifting'' construction for generalized permutohedra, which turns an $n$-dimensional generalized permutahedron into an $(n+1)$-dimensional one. We prove that this construction gives rise to Stasheff's multiplihedron from homotopy theory, and to the more general &qu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Discrete Mathematics & Theoretical Computer Science
Main Authors: Federico Ardila, Jeffrey Doker
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Discrete Mathematics & Theoretical Computer Science 2012-01-01
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Online Access:https://dmtcs.episciences.org/3094/pdf
Description
Summary:We introduce a "lifting'' construction for generalized permutohedra, which turns an $n$-dimensional generalized permutahedron into an $(n+1)$-dimensional one. We prove that this construction gives rise to Stasheff's multiplihedron from homotopy theory, and to the more general "nestomultiplihedra,'' answering two questions of Devadoss and Forcey. We construct a subdivision of any lifted generalized permutahedron whose pieces are indexed by compositions. The volume of each piece is given by a polynomial whose combinatorial properties we investigate. We show how this "composition polynomial'' arises naturally in the polynomial interpolation of an exponential function. We prove that its coefficients are positive integers, and conjecture that they are unimodal.
ISSN:1365-8050