Generalization of Sabitov's theorem to polyhedra of arbitrary dimensions

DOI10.1007/S00454-014-9609-2MaRDI QIDQ464730zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Publication date 29 October 2014

Published in Discrete \& Computational Geometry (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1210.5408

a place of field Bellows conjecture flexible polyhedron Sabitov polynomial simplicial collapse

Combinatorial aspects of simplicial complexes (05E45) Length, area, volume and convex sets (aspects of convex geometry) (52A38) (n)-dimensional polytopes (52B11)

Abstract: In 1996 Sabitov proved that the volume of an arbitrary simplicial polyhedron P in the 3-dimensional Euclidean space

R^{3}

satisfies a monic (with respect to V) polynomial relation F(V,l)=0, where l denotes the set of the squares of edge lengths of P. In 2011 the author proved the same assertion for polyhedra in

R^{4}

. In this paper, we prove that the same result is true in arbitrary dimension

n g e 3

. Moreover, we show that this is true not only for simplicial polyhedra, but for all polyhedra with triangular 2-faces. As a corollary, we obtain the proof in arbitrary dimension of the well-known Bellows Conjecture posed by Connelly in 1978. This conjecture claims that the volume of any flexible polyhedron is constant. Moreover, we obtain the following stronger result. If

P_{t}

,

t i n [0, 1]

, is a continuous deformation of a polyhedron such that the combinatorial type of

P_{t}

does not change and every 2-face of

P_{t}

remains congruent to the corresponding face of

P_{0}

, then the volume of

P_{t}

is constant. We also obtain non-trivial estimates for the oriented volumes of complex simplicial polyhedra in

C^{n}

from their orthogonal edge lengths.

Review text

Heron's formula from classical geometry expresses the square of the area of a triangle as a polynomial in the squares of the lengths of its sides. More generally, \textit{I. Kh. Sabitov} [Vestn. Mosk. Univ., Ser. I 1996, No. 6, 89--91 (1996; Zbl 0897.51009)]; Discrete Comput. Geom. 20, No. 4, 405--425 (1998; Zbl 0922.52006)] proved that if \(P\) is a simplicial polyhedron in \(\mathbb{R}^3\), then there exists a polynomial relation of the form \[ V^{2N} + a_1(\ell)V^{2N-2} + \cdots + a_n(\ell) = 0, \] where \(V\) is the volume of the polyhedron, \(\ell\) is the set of the squares its edge lengths, and the coefficients \(a_i(\ell)\) are polynomials with rational coefficients. This paper generalizes Sabitov's result to higher dimensions. Specifically, let \(n \geq 3\) and let \(K\) be a simplicial complex of dimension \(n-1\). The objects of study are those complexes \(K\) such that: {\parindent=6mm \begin{itemize}\item[1.] \(K\) is a pseudomanifold, meaning \(K\) is pure and each codimension-one face is contained in exactly two top-dimensional faces; \item[2.] \(K\) is strongly connected, meaning its facet-ridge graph is connected; and \item[3.] \(K\) is oriented. \end{itemize}} A simplicial polyhedron of combinatorial type \(K\) is a map \(P: |K| \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^n\) that is linear on the faces of \(|K|\) (but \(P\) need not be injective). The main result of this paper shows that for such a simplicial complex \(K\) and a polyhedron \(P\) of combinatorial type \(K\), there exists an analogous monic polynomial relation to the one shown above that involves the volume of \(P(K)\) and the set of squares of the edge lengths of \(P(K)\). The Bellows Conjecture [\textit{R. Connelly} et al., Beitr. Algebra Geom. 38, No. 1, 1--10 (1997; Zbl 0939.52009)] claims that the generalized oriented volume of a flexible polyhedron in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) remains constant under its flexes. This follows from the main result of the paper.

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