Wondertopes

DOI10.1016/J.AIM.2025.110516MaRDI QIDQ6899274zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Sarah Brauner, Christopher Eur, Elizabeth Pratt, Raluca Vlad

Publication date 17 November 2025

Published in Advances in Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1016/J.AIM.2025.110516

building sets canonical forms hyperplane arrangements log resolution of singularities matroids moduli space of pointed stable rational curves nested set complexes polytopes positive geometries wonderful compactifications wondertopes

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Combinatorial aspects of matroids and geometric lattices (05B35) Global theory and resolution of singularities (algebro-geometric aspects) (14E15) Families, moduli of curves (algebraic) (14H10) Configurations and arrangements of linear subspaces (14N20) Combinatorial properties of polytopes and polyhedra (number of faces, shortest paths, etc.) (52B05)

Review text

Positive geometries, introduced in [\textit{N. Arkani-Hamed} et al., J. High Energy Phys. 2017, No. 11, Paper No. 39, 124 p. (2017; Zbl 1383.81273)], are pairs \((X, X_{\geq 0})\) of a complex projective variety and a semialgebraic subset of its real points, equipped with a unique meromorphic canonical form determined recursively by residues along boundary components. Since a positive geometry \((X, X_{\geq 0})\) naturally defines a pair of a variety and a divisor, it is natural to ask whether it admits a log resolution to another positive geometry \((\widetilde{X}, \widetilde{X}_{\geq 0})\) where \(\widetilde{X}\) is smooth and the boundary is a simple normal crossing divisor. This paper answers the question affirmatively for the prototypical case of a polytope \(\mathcal{P}\) in projective space \(\mathbb{P}V\) by introducing a new family of positive geometries called \textit{wondertopes}.\N\NThe construction proceeds as follows. Given a polytope \(\mathcal{P} \subset \mathbb{P}V\) and a building set \(\mathcal{B}\) of linear subspaces satisfying three conditions -- (1) each \(F \in \mathcal{B}\) meets \(\mathcal{P}\) in a face, (2) \(\mathcal{B}\) contains all facet hyperplanes, and (3) \(\mathcal{B}\) is a building set in the sense of De Concini-Procesi -- the authors form the wonderful compactification \(X_{\mathcal{B}}\) by sequentially blowing up the elements of \(\mathcal{B}\), and define the wondertope \(\widetilde{\mathcal{P}}_{\mathcal{B}}\) as the Euclidean closure of the preimage of the interior of \(\mathcal{P}\). The main result (Theorem 1.4) states that \((X_{\mathcal{B}}, \widetilde{\mathcal{P}}_{\mathcal{B}})\) is a positive geometry whose canonical form equals the pullback \(\pi_{\mathcal{B}}^{*}\Omega(\mathbb{P}V, \mathcal{P})\). Since the boundary of \(X_{\mathcal{B}}\) is simple normal crossing by \textit{C. De Concini} and \textit{C. Procesi} [Sel. Math., New Ser. 1, No. 3, 459--494 (1995; Zbl 0842.14038)], this provides the desired log resolution. The proof first establishes a ``fundamental computation for blowing up a single face (Theorem 3.1) and then proceeds by induction on the building set. A notable corollary recovers the result of \textit{N. Arkani-Hamed} et al. [SIGMA, Symmetry Integrability Geom. Methods Appl. 17, Paper 092, 41 p. (2021; Zbl 1484.13049)] that \((\overline{M}_{0,n+1}, (\overline{M}_{0,n+1})_{\geq 0})\) is a positive geometry with the Parke-Taylor form, by specializing to the braid arrangement with an appropriate building set. Several non-examples demonstrate that each of the three conditions on \(\mathcal{B}\) is necessary. In an appendix, the authors develop combinatorial analogues of the geometric constructions in the language of matroids and prove a product decomposition for nested set complexes of building sets (Theorem 1.7).

Cites work

Cited in

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Partial fraction decompositions on hyperplane arrangements

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