Ehrhart polynomials of polytopes and spectrum at infinity of Laurent polynomials (Q2052823)

The author draws on, and builds, connections between concepts in singularity theory, geometry, and polyhedral combinatorics, to show that the spectrum at infinity of a tame Laurent polynomial can be used to count weighted lattice points in polytopes. Using this, the author derives an algorithm to compute the Ehrhart polynomial of a simplex containing the origin in its interior. More precisely, the \textit{Newton polytope} of a Laurent polynomial on \((\mathbb C^*)^n\) is the convex hull of the points of \(\mathbb Z^n\) which occur as degree vectors of monomials of the Laurent polynomial. The author shows that the spectrum at infinity of a Laurent polynomial that is convenient and non-degenerate with respect to its Newton polytope (defined as in [\textit{A. G. Kushnirenko}, Invent. Math. 32, 1--31 (1976; Zbl 0328.32007)], can be expressed using the Newton filtration of the Newton polytope \(P\) of the polynomial. This is referred to as the \textit{Newton spectrum} of \(P\). The author then extends the above definition of Newton spectrum from Newton polytopes to any full-dimensional polytope containing the origin in its interior. The main result -- essentially available [\textit{A. Stapledon}, Adv. Math. 219, No. 1, 63--88 (2008; Zbl 1174.52007)], though not in the framework of this paper -- is that the Newton spectrum of a full-dimensional polytope \(P\) with vertices in \(\mathbb Z^n\) and having the origin in its interior, is equal to the \textit{weighted} \(\delta\)-vector of the polytope. Here the notion of \(\delta\)-vector comes from Ehrhart theory. As a corollary, the author shows that the \(k\)-th coefficient of the \(\delta\)-vector of \(P\) is equal to the number of entries in its Newton spectrum having values in the interval \(]k-1,k]\). The last corollary above straightforwardly yields a general idea to compute the \(\delta\)-vector and Ehrhart polynomial of a full-dimensional lattice polytope containing the origin in its interior -- viz. to compute the Newton spectrum of the polytope and use the corollary. The author has also proved closed form expressions for the Newton spectrum of \textit{reduced} simplices, i.e. \(n+1\)-vertex polytopes in \(\mathbb R^n\) with no common divisor between the volumes of the polytopes obtainable by replacing the \(i\)-th vertex vector, by its corresponding unit vector, \(1\). The closed form expression allows to implement the general idea described previously, into an effective algorithm for computing the Ehrhart polynomial and \(\delta\)-vector for a reduced simplex. Finally, some additional results are proved for the Newton spectrum of reflexive polytopes and some remarks stated about the distribution of their \(\delta\)-vectors.