An illustrated encyclopedia of area relations (Q6174108)

A triangulation of a Euclidean square is a decomposition of that square into finitely-many triangles any two of whose may only intersect at a common vertex or along a common edge. One can always deform a triangulation \(T\) of that square by displacing its vertices in the interior of the square, which results in a triangulation \(T'\) of the same square with the same incidences between its vertices, edges, and triangles than \(T\) but a different geometry. In particular, the areas of the triangles will change as the vertices move. Now assign to \(T'\) the list of the area of its triangles. It has been shown by the authors [Discrete Comput. Geom. 51, No. 1, 132--160 (2014; Zbl 1300.52010)] that there exists a polynomial \(P_T\), whose variables correspond to the triangles of \(T\), such that \(P_T\) vanishes at this list of areas regardless of how the vertices of \(T\) are displaced. Now consider the collection of the polynomials that one can get as described above from all the triangulations of the square. Set, in each of these polynomials all but a fixed number \(l\) of variables to \(0\). Denote by \(\mathcal{E}_l\) the set of all the irreducible factors of the resulting polynomials on \(l\) variables. In this article, the authors show that \(\mathcal{E}_l\) is finite. Geometrically, setting variables of \(P_T\) to \(0\) amounts to force the corresponding triangles of \(T\) to degenerate into a line segment. Doing this will result in \(T'\) no longer always being a triangulation, but only a dissection of the square in the sense that two intersecting triangles of \(T'\) may then not intersect at a common vertex or along a common edge. The second result of the article is that for any dissection of the square into \(l\) triangles, the areas of these \(l\) triangles must satisfy at least one polynomial in \(\mathcal{E}_l\). A partial converse to this statement is also established: for any \(l\) positive numbers \(a_1\) to \(a_l\) that satisfy a polynomial in \(\mathcal{E}_l\), one can find a triangulation \(T\) of a square placed in \(\mathbb{C}^2\) that can be deformed in a dissection of the square into \(l\) triangles whose triangle areas are \(a_1\) to \(a_l\). This is only a partial converse because the considered square is embedded in \(\mathbb{C}^2\) and not in \(\mathbb{R}^2\). Finally, the authors show how the polynomials in \(\mathcal{E}_l\) can be illustrated using, for each, a certain kind of constrained triangulation.