Relative Stanley-Reisner theory and upper bound theorems for Minkowski sums (Q507686)

The paper is devoted to the long-standing question about the number of faces of Minkowski sums. The first section gives an introduction to algebraic combinatorics, collecting and proving the basic results for relative Stanley-Reisner theory. In the second section the authors make a generalization of Schenzel's formula to relative Buchsbaum complexes. Section 3 gives the classical upper bound theorems for polytopes and spheres and introduces the notion of full subcomplexes. Section 4 provides three powerful methods for bounding the algebraic h-numbers. In Sections 5,6 a tight upper bound theorem for the number of faces of Minkowski sums of polytopes is proved. In Section 7 a tight upper bound theorem for the number of mixed faces of Minkowski sums of polytopes is proved. Criteria for the tightness of bounds are given.