Fiber polytopes for the projections between cyclic polytopes (Q1964647)

The cyclic polytope \(C(n,d)\) is the convex hull of any \(n\) points on the moment curve \(\{ (t, t^2,..., t^d)\): \(t\in \mathbb R\}\) in \(\mathbb R^d\). For \(d'>d\), the authors consider the natural projection of cyclic polytopes \(\pi: C(n,d')\to C(n,d)\) which ``forgets'' the last \(d'-d\) coordinates. For each \(x\in C(n,d)\) the fiber \(\pi^{-1}(x)\) is again a convex polytope, and the average of \(\pi^{-1}(x)\) over all \(x\in C(n,d)\) is called the fiber polytope. The notion of fiber polytope was introduced by \textit{L.~J.~Billera} and \textit{B.~Sturmfels} in [Ann. Math., II. Ser. 135, No. 3, 527-549 (1992; Zbl 0762.52003)]. Its precise definition may given in terms of the Minkowski integral which is the average of the integral over all sections of \(\pi\). The main result characterizes the triples \((n,d,d')\) for which the fiber polytope is canonical in either of the following senses: (i) all polytopal subdivisions induced by \(\pi\) are coherent; (ii) the structure of the fiber polytope does not depend upon the choice of points on the moment curve. The authors also discuss a new instance with a positive answer to the generalized Baues problem, namely that of a projection \(\pi\: P\to Q\) where \(Q\) has only regular subdivisions and \(P\) has two more vertices than its dimension.