A proof of the branching number bound for normal manifolds (Q1816931)

The paper refers to normal manifolds induced by polyhedra in \(\mathbb{R}^n\). In an article of \textit{D. Ralph} [Nonlinear Anal., Theory Methods Appl. 22, No. 8, 1041-1050 (1994; Zbl 0830.57014)] it was proved that the upper bound on the branching number of the normal manifold is 4. In the present paper this result is refined. Namely, it is shown that 4 is the precise branching number of the normal manifold. The result follows from the following: every \((n-2)\)-face of the normal manifold induced by a polyhedron in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) is contained in exactly 4 distinct \(n\)-polyhedra of the normal manifold. The proof is based on the fact that each ridge of a polyhedron is contained in precisely two facets.