Vertex maps between \(\triangle \), \(\square\), and \(\diamond\) (Q2349881)

The paper deals with the enumeration of vertices of the so called hom-polytopes (or mapping polytopes), studied systematically by \textit{T. Bogart} et al. [Math. Z. 273, No. 3--4, 1267--1296 (2013; Zbl 1264.52010)], which is a part of a conjectured homological theory of convex polytopes. Namely, the authors describe vertex sets corresponding to the sets of affine maps between higher dimensional cubes and simplices, crosspolytopes and simplices and between two crosspolytopes based on a well-known fact that a set of affine maps between two polytopes \(P\) and \(Q\) forms a polytope \(\Hom(P.Q)\) itself. Section 1 is introductory and states a well known general result (Theorem 1.1) about the vertices, facets and dimension of \(\Hom(P,Q)\), where \(P\) and \(Q\) are convex polytopes. In section 2 all necessary facts are given concerning the affine geometry of polytopes and cones. The next section deals with a smooth (affine) perturbation criterion (Lemma 3.1) of when an affine map \(f\) is not a vertex of a hom-polytope \(\Hom(P,Q)\): it is the case if and only if \(f\) admits an affine perturbation, i.e., a smooth (affine) 1-family \(\{f_t\}_{(-1,1)}\) in \(\Hom(P,Q)\) with \(f_{0}=f\). In section 4 it is shown (Theorem 4.1) as an application of the smooth perturbation criterion that every vertex \(f\in \Hom(C_m,S_n)\) maps the cube \(C_m\) onto either a vertex or an edge of the n-simplex \(S_n\). Section 5 presents a full geometric description of the vertex set of \(\Hom(Cr_m,S_n)\) (\(Cr_m\) is an m-dimensional crosspolytope) which leads to an estimate for lower and upper bounds on the number of these vertices (Theorem 5.4). Section 6 works with the hom-polytope \(\Hom(Cr_m,Cr_n)\). The main result is that if the image of a vertex \(f\) meets the interior of \(Cr_n\) then \(f\) maps the center of \(Cr_m\) to the center of \(Cr_n\) (that is, \(f\) is a linear map, Theorem 6.1). This gives an estimate for the number of vertices of that hom-polytope (Corollary 6.2). The final section is devoted to the only one open case of \(\Hom(C_m,Cr_n)\) for which the lower bound on the number of vertices is stated (Proposition 7.1). The authors do not have any description of the vertex set in this case.