The mixed degree of families of lattice polytopes (Q2307699)

A lattice polytope in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) is the convex hull of points in \(\mathbb{Z}^n\), called lattice points. A lattice polytope is called hollow if it contains no lattice points in its relative interior (not to be confused with an empty polytope, whose only lattice points -- including on its boundary -- are its vertices). This article examines when a Minkowski sum of lattice polytopes is hollow, motivated in large part due to connections to algebraic geometry. There, a family of hollow lattice polytopes in \(\mathbb{R}^n\), together with some hollowness conditions on their Minkowski sums, then the family is called a nef-partition and can be used to construct Calabi-Yau complete intersections. The main definition that the author introduces is the mixed degree of a family of lattice polytopes: a generalization of the degree of a polytope, defined Ehrhart-theoretically. The author proves that, if a family of \(n\) lattice polytopes in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) is proper (i.e., each member has positive dimension and their Minkowski sum is full-dimensional), then the mixed degree is \(0\) if and only if the mixed volume is \(1\), generalizing a well-known result for unimodular simplices. If there are \(m > n\) polytopes in the proper family and the mixed degree is \(0\), then there is either a unimodular \(n\)-simplex containing all polytopes in the family (up to translations) or the family belongs to one of a finite number of exceptions. Additionally, if the family consists of \(n\) lattice polytopes in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) that are each \(n\)-dimensional, then the mixed degree is at most \(1\) if and only if their mixed volume is \(1\) plus the number of lattice points in their Minkowski sum.