Ehrhart polynomials of matroid polytopes and polymatroids (Q1042445)

It is shown that the Ehrhart polynomials of polymatroids and of matroid polytopes of given (fixed) rank can be computed in polynomial time. An ingredient required in the computation is an efficient method for evaluation of Todd polynomials. Examination of the Ehrhart polynomials of many of these polytopes led the authors to conjecture that (1) the \(h^*\)-vector of any matroid polytope is unimodal and (2) the coefficients of the Ehrhart polynomial of any matroid polytope are nonnegative. It is proven that the two conjectures hold in the case of uniform matroids of rank two. Tables containing the coefficients of the Ehrhart polynomials of nearly three dozen polymatroids and matroid polytopes are included.