Polyhedral surfaces in wedge products (Q2430722)

The authors introduce the wedge product of two polytopes. It is described in terms of inequality systems, in terms of vertex coordinates as well as purely combinatorially, from the corresponding data of its constituents. The wedge product construction can be described as an iterated ``subdirect product'' as introduced by \textit{P. McMullen} [Discrete Math. 14, 347--358 (1976; Zbl 0319.52010)]; it is dual to the ``wreath product'' construction of \textit{M. Joswig} and \textit{F. H. Lutz} [J. Comb. Theory, Ser. A 110, No. 2, 193--216 (2005; Zbl 1095.57019)]. One particular instance of the wedge product construction turns out to be especially interesting: the wedge products of polygons with simplices contain certain combinatorially regular polyhedral surfaces as subcomplexes. These generalize known classes of surfaces ``of unusually large genus'' that first appeared in works by \textit{H. S. M. Coxeter} [Proc. London math. Soc. (2) 43, 33--62 (1937; JFM 63.0584.03)], \textit{G. Ringel} [Abh. Math. Semin. Univ. Hamb. 20, 10--19 (1955; Zbl 0065.16703)], and \textit{P. McMullen} et al. [Isr. J. Math. 46, 127--144 (1983; Zbl 0525.52008)]. Via ``projections of deformed wedge products'' the authors obtain realizations of some of these surfaces in the boundary complexes of 4-polytopes, and thus in \(\mathbb R^3\). As additional benefits this construction also yields polyhedral subdivisions for the interior and the exterior, as well as a great number of local deformations (``moduli'') for the surfaces in \(\mathbb R^3\). In order to prove that there are many moduli, the authors introduce the concept of ``affine support sets'' in simple polytopes. Finally, it is explained how duality theory for 4-dimensional polytopes can be exploited in order to also realize combinatorially dual surfaces in \(\mathbb R^3\) via dual 4-polytopes.