Smooth Fano polytopes with many vertices (Q464728)

The article is devoted to a classification of all \(d\)-dimensional simplicial, terminal, and reflexive lattice polytopes with at least \(3d-2\) vertices. This extends the results by \textit{C. Casagrande} [Ann. Inst. Fourier 56, No. 1, 121--130 (2006; Zbl 1095.52005)] who proved that the number of vertices of such polytopes does not exceed \(3d\) and the results by \textit{M. Øbro} [Manuscr. Math. 125, No. 1, 69--79 (2008; Zbl 1139.52015)] who classified such polytopes with \(3d-1\) vertices. The polytopes considered here turned out to be smooth Fano polytopes which provides an application of the results mentioned above to algebraic geometry using the theory of toric varieties. Moreover, reflexive polytopes and smooth Fano polytopes find applications in mathematical physics by means of \textit{V. V. Batyrev} and \textit{L. A. Borisov} [Invent. Math. 126, No. 1, 183--203 (1996; Zbl 0872.14035)] results on pairs of mirror symmetric Calabi-Yau manifolds from reflexive polytopes, and others. Section 2 deals with basic definitions and properties of lattice polytopes, direct sum of polytopes and lattice equivalence. After stating the results by Casagrande and Obro, the main classification theorem is formulated and proved (see Theorem 7): any \(d\)-dimensional simplicial, terminal, and reflexive lattice polytope with at least \(3d-2\) vertices is lattice equivalent to a direct sum of del Pezzo polytopes, pseudo del Pezzo polytopes, or a (possibly skew and multiple) bipyramid over (pseudo) del Pezzo polytopes. In section 3 a short exposition of toric geometry is given which ends with a statement of the main result in the language of toric varieties (see Corollary 10): any \(d\)-dimensional terminal \(\mathbb Q\)-factorial Gorenstein toric Fano variety (\(d\geq 4\)) with Picard number at least \(2d-2\) decomposes as a toric fiber bundle with some known fiber and base space. Section 4 presents a number of the results concerning the lattice and face structures of simplicial, terminal, and reflexive \(d\)-polytopes while in the next section they are proved to be smooth Fano polytopes when having precisely \(3d-2\) vertices (e.g Propositions 35, 37, 40). Finally (Theorem 51), the following precise classification of such polytopes is obtained: Let \(P\) be a \(d\)-dimensional simplicial, terminal, and reflexive polytope with exactly \(3d-2\) vertices and \(v_{P}=\sum\limits_{v\in \mathrm{Vert}(P)}v=0\). Then \(P\) is lattice equivalent to one of the following polytopes: (1) a (possibly skew) bipyramid over either \(P_{5}\oplus P_{6}^{\oplus\frac{d-3}{2}}\) or a (possibly skew) bipyramid over \(P_{6}^{\oplus\frac{d-2}{2}}\); (2) \(DP(4)\oplus P_{6}^{\oplus\frac{d}{2}-2}\), where \(DP(d)\) is a \(d\)-dimensional del Pezzo polytope and \(P_{5},P_{6}\) are some lattice 5- and 6-gon respectively.