How to compute the rank of a Delaunay polytope (Q872032): Difference between revisions

Delaunay polytopes are defined in the following way. Let \(\{v_{1},\dots ,v_{n}\}\) be a basis of \({\mathbb R}^{n}\). The set of all integral linear combinations of \(v_{1},\dots ,v_{n}\) forms a lattice \(L\). Let \(S\) be a sphere such that the interior of \(S\) contains no points of \(L\), but there are \(n+1\) affinely independent points of \(L\) on the boundary of \(S\). Then the convex hull of \(L\cap S\) is called a Delaunay polytope. Roughly speaking, the rank of a Delaunay polytope is its number of degrees of freedom. The authors present a new method for computing this rank which uses affine dependencies and compare it with the method based on hypermetrics [\textit{M. Deza} and \textit{M. Laurent}, Geometry of Cuts and Metrics (1997; Zbl 0885.52001)]. The new method is applied in particular to cross-polytopes and half-cubes. Finally, an example of a Delaunay polytope is given, which does not have any affine basis.