English

Reconstructing Polytopes and Pseudomanifolds

Combinatorics 2025-05-21 v1

Abstract

We prove that every 4-polytope is determined by its edge-polygon incidences, solving an open problem of Gr\"unbaum. For each d3d \geq 3, we show that not every dd-polytope is determined by its (d3)(d-3)-skeleton and dual (d3)(d-3)-skeleton together, answering a question of Samper. In the simplicial realm, we prove that for d4d \geq 4 and d2kd2\lceil \frac{d}{2} \rceil \leq k \leq d-2, every homology (d1)(d-1)-manifold is determined by the incidences of its kk- and (k1)(k-1)-faces. For d5d \geq 5 and d+12kd2\lceil \frac{d+1}{2} \rceil \leq k \leq d-2, we extend our proof to normal (d1)(d-1)-pseudomanifolds whose (2d2k1)(2d-2k-1)-dimensional links are homology manifolds. Finally, we prove that not every normal (d1)(d-1)-pseudomanifold is determined by its (d2)(d-2)-skeleton.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2505.13789,
  title  = {Reconstructing Polytopes and Pseudomanifolds},
  author = {Joshua Hinman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.13789},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

14 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T02:23:37.712Z