Tropical secant graphs of monomial curves (Q1943371)

We recall that a secant variety of a curve \(X\) is the closure of the union of all lines that meets the curve in two distinct points. The secant variety of a curve is the 3-dimensional variety, it was studied in [\textit{D. Cox} and \textit{J. Sidman}, J. Pure Appl. Algebra 209, No. 3, 651--669 (2007; Zbl 1115.14045)] and [\textit{K. Ranestad}, Collect. Math. 57, No. 1, 27--41 (2006; Zbl 1147.14306)]. The authors investigate the tropicalisation of the secant variety. Since a secant variety carries an action by a one-dimensional torus \(\mathbb{C}^*\), its tropicalisation is product of a line and a cone over a so-called secant graph. The authors give an explicit and clear combinatorial construction of that graph. This construction is very delicate and involves ideas of geometric tropicalisation [\textit{P. Hacking} et al., Invent. Math. 178, No. 1, 173--227 (2009; Zbl 1205.14012)] and ideas of wonderful compactification [\textit{C. De Concini} and \textit{C. Procesi}, Sel. Math., New Ser. 1, No. 3, 459--494 (1995; Zbl 0842.14038)]. The construction allows authors to compute degree of secant variety (see [Zbl 1147.14306]) and its Chow polytope (see [\textit{A. Fink}, Beitr. Algebra Geom. 54, No. 1, 13--40 (2013; Zbl 1282.14106)]).