A proof of Grünbaum's lower bound conjecture for general polytopes (Q2130528)

Consider a \(d\)-dimensional convex polytope with \(v\) vertices. In his 1967 book on polytopes, \textit{B. Grünbaum} [Convex polytopes. Prepared by Volker Kaibel, Victor Klee, and Günter M. Ziegler. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Springer (2003; Zbl 1024.52001)] conjectured that if \(v\leq2d\), then \(P\) has at least \[ \phi_k(v,d)=\binom{d+1}{k+1}+\binom{d}{k+1}-\binom{2d+1-v}{k+1} \] \(k\)-dimensional faces. When \(v=d+1\), \(P\) is a \(d\)-dimensional simplex and the conjecture immediately holds as the last two terms in the above expression of \(\phi_k(v,d)\) cancel. When \(d+2\leq{v}\leq{d+4}\) the conjecture was proven by Grünbaum in his book. The special case when \(v=d+5\) and \(k=1\) has been proven only recently [\textit{G. Pineda-Villavicencio} et al., Eur. J. Comb. 79, 27--45 (2019; Zbl 1423.52022)]. In this article, the author proves Grünbaum's conjecture in general. An important ingredient of her remarkably concise proof is an explicit lower bound on the number of the \(k\)-dimensional faces of a \(d\)-dimensional polytope that contain one or several vertices among a subset of at most \(d\) vertices of that polytope. She also characterizes the polytopes that achieve the conjectured lower bound. More precisely, she proves that if, for \textit{some} \(k\) such that \(1\leq{k}\leq{d-2}\), the considered polytope has exactly \(\phi_k(v,d)\) faces of dimension \(k\), then that polytope is necessarily a \((2d-v)\)-fold pyramid over a prism over a \((v-d-1)\)-dimensional simplex.