Smooth projective toric variety representatives in complex cobordism (Q2514600)

In this paper the question is addressed which complex cobordism classes can be represented by smooth projective toric varieties. Associated to any smooth projective toric variety of real dimension \(2n\) is an \(n\)-dimensional smooth lattice polytope, i.e., a simple lattice polytope such that at each of its vertices the edges emanating from this vertex form an integer basis. The author observes that the generalized Todd genus of a smooth projective toric variety, which is a complex cobordism invariant that can be computed from the Chern numbers, can also be expressed in terms of the \(g\)-vector of the associated polytope. Thus the \(g\)-theorem gives combinatorical obstructions on the Chern numbers in order for a complex cobordism class to contain a smooth projective toric representative. As the \(g\)-theorem is a characterization for a vector to be the \(g\)-vector of a simple polytope, and smoothness is a stronger condition, it is to be expected that these necessary conditions are, in general, not sufficient. This is confirmed by the author by having a closer look at low dimensions: it turns out that while in dimensions \(2\) and \(4\) the conditions are indeed sufficient, this is no longer true in dimension \(6\) and higher. In dimension \(6\) he is still able to determine the precise conditions on the Chern numbers for a complex cobordism class to be represented by a smooth projective toric variety, but he obtains only partial results in dimension \(8\).