Combinatorial structure of Schulte's chiral polyhedra (Q977186)

The paper deals with chiral polyhedra in \(R^3\). By definition, a polyhedron is geometrically chiral if its geometric symmetry group has exactly two orbits on the flags such that adjacent flags are in distinct orbits. The discrete chiral polyhedra in \(R^3\) are enumerated by \textit{E. Schulte} [see Discrete Comput. Geom. 32, No.~1, 55--99 (2004; Zbl 1059.52020), Discrete Comput. Geom. 34, No.~2, 181--229 (2005; Zbl 1090.52009)]. It is proved that (i) no geometric chiral polyhedron in \(R^3\) can be finite, (ii) the infinite chiral polyhedra with finite faces belong to three families of polyhedra with Schläfli types \(\{ 6,6\}\), \(\{ 4,6\}\), \(\{ 6,4\}\), (iii) the chiral polyhedra with infinite faces belong to three families of polyhedra with Schläfli types \(\{ \infty,3\}\) and \(\{ \infty, 4\}\). The purpose of the paper is to analyze the combinatorial structure of Schulte's geometrically chiral polyhedra in \(R^3\). The author provides a presentation of the automorphism groups for Schulte's polyhedra with finite faces (case (ii)), proves that all these polyhedra are combinatorially chiral and discusses which of these polyhedra are combinatorially regular. As for the three families of Schulte's polyhedra with infinite faces (case (iii)), these polyhedra are shown to be combinatorially regular. Moreover, it is proved that any two Schulte polyhedra with infinite faces which belong to the same family are isomorphic. The author presents an algebraic proof based on the investigation of the automorphism groups and provides its geometric interpretation.