On lattice-free orbit polytopes (Q2256587)

Let \(S_n\) denote the symmetric group on \(n\) letters and let \(\Gamma\) be a subgroup of \(S_n\). This paper considers polytopes of the form \(P = \text{conv}(\Gamma z)\) for some vector \(z \in \mathbb{Z}^n\) (where \(\Gamma z\) is the orbit of \(z\) under \(\Gamma\)) with the property that the only integer points in \(P\) are those points in \(\Gamma z\). Such a polytope is called a lattice-free orbit polytope, and its vertices are called core points. Notice that the subspace \(\overline{1} := \text{span}(1,\ldots,1)\) is always a \(\Gamma\)-invariant subspace. Therefore, all results are considered modulo translation along this subspace. The first main result in the paper shows that if \(\Gamma\) acts transitively on \(S_n\), then there exists a constant, \(C = C(n)\) that depends only on the dimension \(n\), such that every core point with respect to \(\Gamma\) lies within a distance of \(C\) of some \(\Gamma\)-invariant subspace of \(\mathbb{R}^n\) (other than \(\overline{1}\)). The next part of the paper considers those subgroups \(\Gamma\) that possess only two invariant subspaces (i.e., \(\overline{1}\) and its orthogonal complement). As a corollary to the first main result, the authors show that modulo translation by \(\overline{1}\), there are only finitely many core points for such a subgroup. They go on to explore techniques for computationally finding representatives of each equivalence class of core points in this case. The paper closes by exploring a conjecture that a subgroup \(\Gamma\) with more than two invariant subspaces must have infinitely many core points (again up to translation). This conjecture is verified in two special cases of imprimitive groups and groups with an irrational invariant subspace.