No label defined (Q4938475)

The generalized Baues problem (GBC), as formulated by \textit{L. J. Billera, M. M. Kapranov} and \textit{B. Sturmfels} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 122, 549-555 (1994; Zbl 0812.52007)] asks whether the poset of all \(\pi\)-induced subdivisions of a polytope \(Q\), associated with a projection \(\pi:P\rightarrow Q\) of polytopes, necessarily has the homotopy type of a sphere of dimension \(\dim(P)-\dim(Q)-1\). This is a natural conjecture since the subposet of coherent \(\pi\)-induced subdivisions is the face lattice of the fiber polytope \(\Sigma(\pi:P\rightarrow Q)\), and thus spherical, according to \textit{L. J. Billera} and \textit{B. Sturmfels} [Ann. Math 135, 527-549 (1992; Zbl 0762.52003)]. Reiner's important, extensive, careful and useful survey presents the problem in its many ramifications, makes manifold connections (to spaces of triangulations, paths on polytopes, cubical tilings, etc.), surveys main results and pieces of progress, and highlights the key open problems. In particular, the GBC is false for some examples, by \textit{J. Rambau} and \textit{G. M. Ziegler} [Discrete Comput. Geom. 16, 215-237 (1996; Zbl 0865.52008)]. However, it is true in many interesting situations, and it is still not resolved for the important special cases where \(P\) is a simplex, or where \(P\) is a cube (and thus \(Q\) is a zonotope) although very recent progress of \textit{F. Santos} [J. Am. Math. Soc. 13, 611-637 (2000)] indicates that we should expect negative answers. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0927.00011].