An illustrated theory of hyperbolic virtual polytopes (Q931598)

The group of virtual polytopes in \({\mathbb R}^3\) consists of all formal expressions \(K\oplus L^{-1}\), where \(K\) and \(L\) are convex polytopes in \({\mathbb R}^3\). They may be visualized as closed polytopal surfaces together with a fan which describes the structure of the set of normal vectors. The support function of \(K\oplus L^{-1}\) is defined to be the difference of the support functions of \(K\) and \(L\). The authors study in particular hyperbolic virtual polytopes, which are characterized by a certain saddle property of their support function. They present non-trivial examples of hyperbolic virtual polytopes with 6 and 8 ``horns''. Such polytopes may be used to construct counterexamples to a conjecture of A. D. Alexandrov (1939), as the second author has already previously shown [Adv. Geom. 5, No. 2, 301--317 (2005; Zbl 1077.52003) and Cent. Eur. J. Math. 4, No. 2, 270--293 (2006; Zbl 1107.52002)].