Colorful polytopes and graphs

摘要

The paper investigates connections between abstract polytopes and properly edge colored graphs. Given any finite n-edge-colored n-regular graph G, we associate to G a simple abstract polytope P G of rank n, the colorful polytope of G, with 1-skeleton isomorphic to G. We investigate the interplay between the geometric, combinatorial, or algebraic properties of the polytope P G and the combinatorial or algebraic structure of the underlying graph G, focussing in particular on aspects of symmetry. Several such families of colorful polytopes are studied including examples derived from a Cayley graph, in particular the graphicahedra, as well as the flagadjacency polytopes and related monodromy polytopes associated with a given abstract polytope. The duals of certain families of colorful polytopes have been important in the topological study of colored triangulations and crystallization of manifolds.