Cracked polytopes and Fano toric complete intersections (Q785993)

The context of the paper under review is the construction and classification of Fano varieties via mirror symmetry. Stemming from the Laurent inversion construction in [\textit{T. Coates} et al., Pure Appl. Math. Q. 15, No. 4, 1135--1179 (2019; Zbl 1439.14122)], the author introduces cracked polytopes. These, by definition, are such that their intersection with the minimal cones of a complete fan (\textit{shape}) is a set of unimodular polytopes. The paper connects the notion of cracked polytopes to embeddings of toric varieties \(X_P\) into possibly smooth ambient toric varieties \(Y\). Along with extra conditions, the (local) smoothness of \(Y\) is equivalent to requiring that \(P\) is cracked along a shape. The author mainly examines the case in which \(X_P\) embeds in \(Y\) as a complete intersection, making use of the \textit{scaffolding} technique. A particular attention is given to Fano polytopes, as cracked polytopes well describe toric degenerations of Fano varieties with very ample anticanonical divisor, especially in dimension 3 and 4.