New polytopes from products (Q855834)

The \(E\)-construction of Paffenholz and Ziegler produces a piecewise linear CW sphere \(E(P)\) from a given polytope \(P\) [\textit{A. Paffenholz} and \textit{G. M. Ziegler}, Discrete Comput. Geom. 32, 601--621 (2004; Zbl 1109.52009)]. The author considers products of polytopes, \(P=P_1\times P_2\), and finds some sufficient conditions for the polytopality of \(E(P_1\times P_2)\). These conditions are satisfied in the particular case when \(P_1\) and \(P_2\) are polygons with \(n\) and \(m\) vertices respectively, \(n\), \(m\geq 3\). So the \(E\)-construction applied to products of polygons \(P_1\times P_2\) results in a new two-parametric family of polytopes \(E_{nm}=E(P_1\times P_2)\). These polytopes are proved to be self-dual, 2-simplicial and 2-simple. Besides the \(E_{nm}\) have a large combinatorial symmetry group; it is remarked that in some cases combinatorial symmetries of \(E_{nm}\) are geometrically nonrealizable. Finally the fatness of \(E_{nm}\) in the sense of \textit{D. Eppstein, G. Kuperberg}, and \textit{G. M. Ziegler} [Pure Appl. Math., Marcel Dekker 253, 239--265 (2003; Zbl 1045.52006)] is analysed.