Projections and angle sums of belt polytopes and permutohedra (Q6045117)

A polytope \(P\subset {\mathbb{R}}^n\) is a \textit{belt polytope} if its normal fan coincides with the fan of some hyperplane arrangement \(\mathcal{A}\). An affine subspace \(M\subset {\mathbb{R}}^n\) is in \textit{general position w.r.t.~a linear subspace \(L\subset {\mathbb{R}}^n\)} if the unique linear space \(M'\) through origin and parallel to \(M\) satisfies \(\dim(M'\cap L) = \max(\dim(M') + \dim(L) - n,0)\). A linear subspace \(L\subset {\mathbb{R}}^n\) is in \textit{general position w.r.t.~polyhedral set \(P\)} if the affine hull of each face \(F\) of \(P\) is in general positing w.r.t.~\(L\). Let \(P\subset {\mathbb{R}}^n\) be a belt polytope and \(G : {\mathbb{R}}^n \rightarrow {\mathbb{R}}^d\) be a surjective linear map, so \(\dim(\ker(G))=n-d\). If \(\ker(G)\subset {\mathbb{R}}^n\) is in general position w.r.t.~the faces of \(P\), then a formula for the number of \(j\)-dimensional faces of the projected polytope \(GP\) is derived in terms of the \(j\)-level characteristic polynomial of the hyperplane arrangement \(\mathcal{A}\). Here, the \textit{characteristic polynomial} of \(\mathcal{A}\) is given by \[ \chi_{\mathcal{A}}(t) = \sum_{\mathcal{C}\subset\mathcal{A}} (-1)^{|\mathcal{C}|}\ t^{\dim(I_{\mathcal{C}})}, \] where \(I_{\mathcal{C}} = \bigcap_{H\in\mathcal{C}}H\) is the intersection of all the hyperplanes in \(\mathcal{C}\), and the \textit{\(j\)-th level characteristic polynomial} of \(\mathcal{A}\) is defined by \[ \chi_{{\mathcal{A}},j}(t) := \sum_{M\in {\mathcal{L}}_j(\mathcal{A})}\chi_{\mathcal{A}|M}(t), \] where \({\mathcal{L}}_j(\mathcal{A})\) is the sublattice consisting of all the \(j\)-dimensional linear subspaces from the lattice \(\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{A})\) of all linear subspaces of \(\mathcal{A}\) and their intersections, and \({\mathcal{A}|M} := \{H\cap M : H\in \mathcal{A}, \ \ M\not\subseteq H\}\). In particular, it is shown that the face numbers of \(GP\) do not depend on on the linear map \(G\) provided that \(G\) satisfies some general and natural assumptions. For a polyhedral set \(P\subset {\mathbb{R}}\) the \textit{tangent cone} \(T_f(P)\) of a face \(F\) of \(P\) is defined by \(T_F(P) = \{\tilde{x}\in {\mathbb{R}}^n : \tilde{x}_0 + \epsilon\tilde{x}\in P \mbox{ for some }\epsilon >0\}\) where \(\tilde{x}_0\) is some point in the relative interior of the face \(F\). The paper further derives formulas for the sum of the conic intrinsic volumes and Grassmann angles of the tangent cones of \(P\) at all of its \(j\)-faces. Here, the \textit{conic intrinsic volumes} are the analogues of the usual intrinsic volumes in the setting of conical or spherical geometry and can be defined using the spherical Steiner formula, and the \textit{Grassmann angles} \(\gamma_k(C)\) of a given cone \(C\subset {\mathbb{R}}^n\) are defined in terms of a random linear subspace of dimension \(n-k\) with uniform distributions on the Grassmannian of all \((n-k)\)-dimensional subspaces of \({\mathbb{R}}^n\). These mentioned formulas are then applied to permutohedra of type \(A\) and \(B\) which then yield closed formulas for the face numbers of the projected permutohedra and the generalized angle sums of permutohedra in terms of Stirling numbers of both first and the second kind. Here, a permutohedron of type \(A\) in terms of \(\tilde{x} = (x_1,\dots,x_n)\in {\mathbb{R}}^n\) is defined by \({\mathcal{P}}_n^A(\tilde{x}) := \mathrm{conv}\{(x_{\sigma(1)},\dots,x_{\sigma(n)}) : \sigma\in S_n\}\) and a permutohedron of type \(B\) in terms of \(\tilde{x} = (x_1,\dots,x_n)\in {\mathbb{R}}^n\) is defined by \({\mathcal{P}}_n^B(\tilde{x}) := \mathrm{conv}\{(\epsilon_1x_{\sigma(1)},\dots,\epsilon_nx_{\sigma(n)}) : (\epsilon_1,\dots,\epsilon_n)\in \{\pm 1\}^n, \ \ \sigma\in S_n\}\), where \(S_n\) is the symmetric group of all permutations on \(n\) letters. These permutohedra of type \(A\) and \(B\) are examples of belt polytopes.