English

Integral Planes and Unit-Norm Polytopes

Combinatorics 2026-05-19 v1 Rings and Algebras

Abstract

We introduce and study integral planes associated with crystallographic and non-crystallographic integral systems in real composition algebras. For an integral order \Order\Order in such an algebra we define the plane \Order2\Order^{2} with quadratic form Q(x,y)=\NN(x)+\NN(y)Q(x,y)=\NN(x)+\NN(y), the axis shell, the balanced shell, and the corresponding unit-normalised spherical polytopes. For ten crystallographic orders we recover, in one uniform construction, the orthogonal-direct-sum root systems 2A12A_{1}, A2A2A_{2}\oplus A_{2}, 4A14A_{1}, D4D4D_{4}\oplus D_{4}, 16A116A_{1}, and E8E8E_{8}\oplus E_{8} (with classical-polytope realisations including the square, the 16-cell, the 24-cell, and the Gosset polytope 4214_{21}); for two non-crystallographic orders we obtain H2H2H_{2}\oplus H_{2} (decagonal tegum) and H4H4H_{4}\oplus H_{4} (600-cell tegum) over Z[\golden]\Z[\golden]. We prove a rank-obstruction theorem that closes, unconditionally and by a purely Coxeter-theoretic argument, the existence question for an indecomposable rank-eight golden octonion order: no such order can exist. On the balanced shell side, we identify the genuine algebraic Hopf map \HopfmapA(a,b)=(2abˉ,\NN(a)\NN(b))\Hopfmap_{A}(a,b)=(2a\bar b,\NN(a)-\NN(b)) and prove that its restriction to the balanced shell is a finite principal fibration of the unit loop, valid both for the associative case and for the alternative Moufang case.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.18538,
  title  = {Integral Planes and Unit-Norm Polytopes},
  author = {Daniele Corradetti},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.18538},
  year   = {2026}
}