A characterization of affinely regular polygons (Q5915552)

A polygon \(P\) in \(\mathbb{R}^2\) with cyclically-labeled vertices \(p_1,\dots,p_n\) is called \textit{affinely regular} if there is an affine linear transformation sending \(p_i\) to \(p_{i+1}\) for all \(i = 1,\dots,n\) (where \(p_{n+1} = p_1\)). Coxeter showed that if there is some \(\lambda \geq 0\) for which \(p_{j+2} - p_{j-1} = \lambda(p_{j+1}-p_j)\) for all \(j\), then \(P\) is affinely regular. The article under review generalizes this result first by considering \(P\) as an \(n\)-gon in \(\mathbb{C}\) and examining equations of the form \(p_{j+m_1} - p_{j+m_2} = w(p_{j+k}-p_j)\), where \(n,m_1,m_2,k\) are integers satisfying certain elementary number theoretic conditions and \(w \in \mathbb{C} \setminus S^1\). The conclusion is that, under these conditions, regularity is controlled by \(w\): if \(w\) is strictly real, then \(P\) is affinely regular; otherwise, \(P\) is strictly regular. The author then addresses \(d\)-dimensional polytopes, characterizing when there is an automorphism of \(P\) sending \(p_j\) to \(p_{j+1}\) for each \(j\). In particular, this characterizes the \(d\)-dimensional polytopes with \(n\) vertices whose automorphism groups contain \(D_n\).