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# Vacuum gap model for PSR B0943+10

## 1 Introduction

The fundamental problem of pulsar research is lack of consensus about the radio emission mechanism, except that the electron-positron pair production is an essential ingredient, to explain the observed coherent radiation. Moreover, the observed phenomenon of drifting subpulses serves as an excellent diagnostic tool to investigate the mechanism of pulsar radio emission. PSR B0943+10 with period $`P=1.09`$ s and period derivative $`\dot{P}=3.510^{15}`$ s/s exhibits long and stable sequences of drifting subpulses (Deshpande & Rankin 1999, 2001, hereafter DR99 and DR01, Asgekar & Deshpande 2001). This pulsar is observable only at frequencies below 800 MHz (high frequency radiation most probably misses the line-of-sight due to specific observing geometry) and drifting subpulses with similar features are observed at 35, 111 and 430 MHz, implying broad-band nature of the phenomenon. This suggests that drifting subpulses in this pulsar are associated with a stable system of emission subbeams, rotating around the pulsar magnetic axis. The aliasing resolved analysis of the harmonic-resolved fluctuation spectra related to drifting subpulses yielded in precise estimates of periodicities of phase and amplitude modulation, namely $`P_3=1.87P`$ and $`\widehat{P}_3=37P`$, respectively (DR01). These two periodicities are harmonically related and are used to determine the number of subpulse beams $`N=\widehat{P}_3/P_3=20`$ contributing to the observed modulations. The subpulse “drift-bands” clearly visible in the observed drift pattern (Backer 1973) are separated vertically by $`\widehat{P}_3`$ (in pulsar periods) and horizontally by $`P_2`$ (in pulse longitude). The latter is estimated as being about $`11^{}`$ and can be converted into the magnetic azimuth angle $`\eta `$ separating adjacent subbeams. This requires knowledge of the inclination angle $`\alpha `$ and the impact angle $`\beta `$, which for this pulsar is estimated from the polarization measurements and from the viewing geometry that leads to missing radiation above $`800`$ MHz. Using $`\alpha =11^{}.64`$ and $`\beta =4.31^{}`$ (DR01), one gets $`\eta =18^{}`$, which in turn gives $`N=360^{}/\eta =20`$ subbeams rotating at the beam periphery of PSR B0943$`+`$10.

Karastergiou et al.(2001) observed simultaneously subpulses in single pulses of PSR B0329+34 at 1.4 and 2.7 GHz. Careful analysis of these observations suggests strongly that a single plasma column fed by a single entity at the bottom of the pulsar magnetosphere is responsible for the subpulse observed across the pulsar spectrum, which can be interpreted naturally in terms of sparks operating on the polar cap surface. This picture is probably more general and can be applied to other pulsars, including those with drifting subpulses. Deshpande & Rankin (1999) noticed that the subpulse drift phenomenon observed in PSR B0943$`+`$10 is consistent with the model proposed by Ruderman & Sutherland (1975, hereafter RS75), in which the subbeams are associated with sparking discharges operating within the vacuum gap (VG) developed just above the polar cap. The observed subpulse drift rate in this model arises from the speed of circulation of sparks around the magnetic axis, which is determined by rate of the $`𝐄\times 𝐁`$ drift of electron-positron plasma confined to the isolated spark filament within the VG. If the planes of surface magnetic field lines are more or less perpendicular to the polar cap boundary, then the peripherial sparks will slowly rotate around the magnetic axis. Deshpande & Rankin (1999) demonstrated clearly that the non-corotating subbeams associated with drifting subpulses actually lag the stellar rotation. This finding strenghtens the VG plasma $`𝐄\times 𝐁`$ drift hypothesis. However, the formation of VG itself suffered criticism owing to the problem of binding energy of ions, not being high enough to be retained on the stellar surface (Hillenbrandt & Müller 1976, Kössl et al 1988). Morover, the association of drifting subpulses with sparks was questioned based on the fact that sparks will move towards the magnetic pole at a speed much faster than the $`𝐄\times 𝐁`$ drift velocity, thus quenching the stable drifting patterns (Cheng & Ruderman, 1977; Filippenko & Radhakrishnan, 1982). In this paper we demonstrate that indeed VG can form in PSR B0943$`+`$10 if the surface magnetic field is very strong and non-dipolar in nature. For the first time we are able to constrain the parameters of the surface magnetic field assuming that the VG is dominated by the inverse Compton scattering photons. We also demonstrate that the embarrassing problem with rapid spark motion towards the pole will not occur due to specific geometry of the surface magnetic field in the VG, at least in PSR B0943$`+`$10.

## 2 Constraining surface field in PSR B0943$`+`$10

### 2.1 Vacuum Gap formation

Gil & Mitra (2001, hereafter GM01) argued that VG can form in neutron stars with very strong non-dipolar surface magnetic field $`B_s=bB_d`$, where $`B_d=210^{12}(P\dot{P}_{15})^{0.5}`$ G is the inferred dipolar field $`(B_d=4\times 10^{12}`$ G in this case) and $`\dot{P}_{15}=\dot{P}/10^{15}`$. For surface magnetic fields with $`b1`$, the radius of curvature of field lines $``$ should be relatively small, with normalized values $`_6=/R<<100`$, where $`R=10^6`$ cm is the neutron star radius. GM01 considered strong magnetic fields $`B>0.1B_q`$, where $`B_q=4.4\times 10^{13}`$ G is termed as the quantum critical field. In such strong magnetic fields, high energy photons with frequency $`\omega `$ produce electron-positron pairs near the kinematic threshold with photon energy $`\mathrm{}\omega =2mc^2/\mathrm{sin}\theta `$, where $`\mathrm{sin}\theta =l_{ph}/`$, $`l_{ph}`$ is the mean photon path for pair formation. The typical photon energy is $`\mathrm{}\omega =1.5\mathrm{}\gamma ^3c/`$ in the case of curvature radiation (CR) seed photons (e.g. RS75) and $`\mathrm{}\omega =2\gamma \mathrm{}eB/mc`$ in the case of resonant inverse Compton scattering (ICS) seed photons (Zhang et al., 1997); see GM01 for details of the Near Threshold Vacuum Gap (NTVG) formation.

The condition for VG formation in neutron stars with $`𝛀𝐁<0`$ can be written in the form $`T_i/T_s>1`$, where $`T_i=6\times 10^5b^{0.73}(P\dot{P}_{15})^{0.36}K`$ is the critical temperature above which 56Fe ions cannot be bound (Abrahams & Shapiro, 1991; Usov & Melrose, 1995). The surface temperature $`T_s=\left(ke\mathrm{\Delta }V\dot{N}/\sigma \pi r_p^2\right)^{1/4}`$, where $`r_p=b^{0.5}10^4P^{0.5}\mathrm{cm}`$ is the actual polar cap radius, $`\dot{N}_{\mathrm{GJ}}=\pi r_p^2B_s/(eP)`$ is the kinematic Goldreich-Julian flux through the polar cap surface, $`\mathrm{\Delta }V=(2\pi /cP)B_sh^2`$ is the potential drop across the polar gap. The efficiency coefficient $`k`$ in $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ describes departure from black body conditions on the polar cap surface; $`k=q_{rad}/q_{heat}<1`$, where $`q_{rad}=\sigma T_s^4`$, $`q_{heat}=(𝛀𝐁_𝐬/2\pi c)\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ and $`\sigma =5.67\times 10^5\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2K^1s^1`$. One can show that at the neutron star surface below the sparking gap the value of $`k`$ can be as low as 0.3 (Gil 2002, in preparation). Considering the CR seed photons as a source of electron-positron pairs one obtains the height of the CR dominated NTVG in the form $`h_{CR}=(3\times 10^3)_6^{0.29}b^{0.43}P^{0.21}\dot{P}_{15}^{0.21}\mathrm{cm}`$ (GM01; their eq. 6)111 Note the typographical error in GM01 eq. 6 for powers of $`P`$ and $`\dot{P}`$ which is corrected here.. Using it for VG condition $`T_i/T_s>1`$, we get the relation between $`b`$ and $`_6`$ in the form

$$b=15.6\times _6^{0.31}(\mathrm{for}k=0.5),$$
(1)
and $`b=20\times _6^{0.31}`$ for $`k=1.0`$. In the case of the resonant-ICS dominated gap, the height of the NTVG is $`h_{ICS}=(5\times 10^3)_6^{0.57}b^1P^{0.36}\dot{P}_{15}^{0.5}\mathrm{cm}`$ (GM01; their eq. 12) and the corresponding relation for gap formation is,

$`b`$ $`=5.1\times _6^{0.38}(\mathrm{for}k=0.5),`$ (2)
$`b`$ $`=6.4\times _6^{0.38}(\mathrm{for}k=1.0).`$ (3)
We argue in section 4 that from our modelling CR-NTVG is not likely to form in PSR B0943$`+`$10 and that for ICS-NTVG the value of the coefficient $`k`$ is slightly lower than unity. Hereafter we only consider ICS-NTVG for further calculations.

### 2.2 Complexity parameter

Following the original idea of RS75, Gil & Sendyk (2000; hereafter GS00) argued that the polar cap is populated with $`N_{max}a^2`$ sparks with characteristic dimension $`𝒟h`$, separated from one another by a distance $`dh`$, where $`a=r_p/h`$ is the complexity parameter (see also Fan et al. 2001). Keeping in mind the grazing viewing trajectory in PSR B0943$`+`$10, we consider an arrangement of $`N=20<N_{max}`$ sparks on a periphery of the polar cap in this pulsar. Since the exact separation $`dh`$ of adjacent sparks is unknown, one can write $`d=h(1+\delta )`$ where $`|\delta |1`$. We will arbitrarily choose the value of $`|\delta |=0.25`$, which determines the parameter space marked by the grey area in Fig. 1 (note that if $`|\delta |=0`$ then the parameter space reduces to single line midway between lines (4) and (5), which is both unrealistic and inconvenient for further analysis). We can thus write $`N𝒟+Nd=20h(2+\delta )=2\pi (r_ph)`$ or $`a=7.34+3.18\delta `$. Using the ICS dominated gap height $`h=h_{ICS}`$ we obtain the relation between $`b`$ and $`_6`$ in the form $`b^{0.5}_6^{0.57}=2+0.86\delta `$, which gives two limiting relations of the form

$`b`$ $`=4.9\times _6^{1.14}`$ $`(\mathrm{for}\delta =+0.25),`$ (4)
$`b`$ $`=3.2\times _6^{1.14}`$ $`(\mathrm{for}\delta =0.25),`$ (5)
corresponding to lines (4) and (5) in Fig. 1, respectively. Any point $`(b,R_6)`$ between these lines corresponds to the VG with 20 sparks of diameter $`𝒟=h`$, separated from each other by $`d=h(1+\delta )`$ (where $`0.25<\delta <+0.25`$), occupying a peripheral ring-like area on the polar cap of PSR B0943+10. Although the maximum possible number of sparks on the polar cap of this pulsar is $`N_{max}a^250`$ (GS00, Fan et al. 2001), only the 20 outermost sparks can contribute to the observed radiation due to the grazing line-of-sight geometry. Moreover, lack of conditions for vacuum gap formation towards the central parts of the polar cap can result in the hollow-cone structure of emission beams (see next section; Fig. 3).

### 2.3 The $`𝐄\times 𝐁`$ drift rate

The isolated columns of spark plasma within VG perform a slow $`𝐄\times 𝐁`$ drift in the direction perpendicular to the planes of magnetic field lines, which in turn should be perpendicular to the polar cap edge. Following RS75, one can attempt to estimate the speed of circumpferential motion of each spark $`v_d=cE_{}/B_s`$, where $`E_{}2\mathrm{\Delta }V/r_p`$ (to within an uncertainty factor of less than 4) and $`\mathrm{\Delta }V=(2\pi /cP)B_sh^2`$ is the potential drop within the gap. Thus, the speed of $`𝐄\times 𝐁`$ circulation $`v_d=(4\pi /P)(h^2/r_p)`$. In the case of PSR B0943+10, $`h500`$ cm (see Fig.3), $`r_p3300`$ cm and $`v_d850`$ cm/s. The time interval after which each spark completes full ($`360^{}`$) circulation around the polar cap perimeter is $`\widehat{P}_32\pi r_p/v_d`$=0.5$`P(r_p/h)^2`$, which is about 22$`P`$ in this case. Given the uncertainty in $`E_{}`$, this is consistent with to the observed value $`\widehat{P}_3=37P`$ ( which implies $`v_d=2\pi r_p/\widehat{P}_3510`$ cm/s, close to $`810`$ cm/s obtained above given the uncertainty in the theoretical determination of $`E_{}`$).

### 2.4 Parameter space

The surface magnetic field $`B_sB_q=4.4\times 10^{13}`$ G represents the so-called photon splitting level, above which the electron-positron plasma cannot be produced (see Zhang & Harding 2000 for review). Hence, yet another constraint can be imposed for PSR B0943+10

$$b\frac{B_q}{B_d}11.$$
(6)
Thus, the parameter space for possible values of $`b`$ and $`_6`$ is marked by the gray area enclosed by lines (6), (5), (4) and (2)222The line (2) in Fig. 1 corresponds to the case when the actual value of the efficiency parameter $`k=q_{rad}/q_{heat}=0.5`$ is adopted. For $`k=1`$ the line (2) should be replaced by the line (3). Therefore, the region between lines (2) and (3) corresponds to $`0.5<k<1`$, while the region above line (3) corresponds to $`k=1`$ (for more detailed discussion of the parameter $`k`$ see Gil (2002), in preparation). in Fig. 1. Within this area the ICS-dominated NTVG can exist, with 20 equidistant sparks circulating around the perimeter of the polar cap in the time interval $`\widehat{P}_3`$ close to 37 pulsar periods. The CR-NTVG represented by line (1) correspond to the case $`k=0.5`$ (for $`k=1.0`$ the limiting line $`b=20\times _6^{0.31}`$ almost coincides with the ordinate axis in Fig. 1; see also section 4). While we are not able to exclude the possibility of CR-NTVG formation, we find modelling of implied magnetic structure extremely difficult as we describe in section 3 and 4. As seen from Fig. 1, the surface magnetic field $`B_s`$ exceeds $`2\times 10^{13}`$ G $`(b>3)`$ and the radius of curvature $``$ of surface field lines is about $`(13)\times 10^6`$ cm $`(1\stackrel{<}{_{}}_6\stackrel{<}{_{}}3)`$. The two filled symbols ($``$ and $``$) represent two model examples of the surface magnetic field structure which are discussed in the next section.

## 3 Modelling the surface magnetic field

We have argued that the observations of regularly drifting subpulses in PSR B0943+10 imply that ICS-dominated NTVG can form in this pulsar with a strong non-dipolar surface magnetic field. Further from Fig 1, we notice that the two parameters lie in the range $`3\stackrel{<}{_{}}b\stackrel{<}{_{}}11`$ and $`0.33\stackrel{<}{_{}}\rho _c\stackrel{<}{_{}}1`$, where we introduce the normalized curvature $`\rho _c=1/_6`$. We now examine by means of numerical modelling whether such a structure of the surface magnetic field is conceivable. We assume that the actual surface magnetic field is a superposition of the star centered global dipole moment $`𝐝`$ and the crust anchored dipole moment $`𝐦`$ placed at $`𝐑_m`$, whose influence results in small scale deviations of the surface field from the pure global dipole. The resultant surface magnetic field $`𝐁_s=𝐁_d+𝐁_m`$, where $`|𝐁_d|2d/r^3`$ and $`|𝐁_m|2m/|𝐫𝐑_m|^3`$, where $`𝐫`$ is the radius vector. For clarity of graphic presentation we use the normalization $`R_0=|𝐑_m|/R`$ and the strength of $`m=|𝐦|`$ is expressed in units of $`d=|𝐝|`$.

The detailed numerical formalism of modelling the actual surface magnetic field within the above model was developed by Gil et al. (2002) and we now apply it to PSR B0943+10. This accompanying paper gives details of modelling of the surface magnetic field in pulsars (a review concerning the crust origin surface magnetic field in pulsars is also included in this paper). To obtain the equations of resultant open magnetic field lines (along which a high unipolar potential drop can develop) we solve the system of differential equations $`d\theta /dr=B_\theta /(rB_r)`$ and $`d\varphi /dr=B_\theta (rB_r\mathrm{sin}\theta )`$, with the initial condition $`B_m(r=5R)=0`$ (since $`B_m/B_d(m/d)(r/|𝐫𝐑_m|)^3`$, then for $`m/d10^4`$ the ratio $`B_m/B_d10^4`$ for $`r\stackrel{>}{_{}}5R`$). Thus, we define a bundle of the open dipolar field lines at the altitude $`r=5R`$ and then trace the lines of resultant magnetic field $`𝐁_s`$ down to the stellar surface $`(r=R)`$. Consequently, we obtain the boundary of the physical polar cap as well as the actual surface magnetic field above the polar cap. It follows from the symmetry suggested by the observed patterns of drifting subpulses and their spectral analysis (DR99, DR01) that the local dipole $`𝐦`$ should lie in the fiducial plane containing both the pulsar spin axis and the magnetic axis. Without loss of generality, we placed for simplicity the local dipole axis at the polar cap center. Since $`B_sB_d`$ in PSR B0943$`+`$10 then in order to increase $`B_d`$ to values exceeding $`10^{13}`$ G the magnetic moments $`𝐝`$ and $`𝐦`$ must have the same polarity.

Fig. 2 presents results of calculations for two cases: $`m=2.1\times 10^4d`$ and $`R_0=0.967R`$ (marked as $``$), and $`m=1.0\times 10^4d`$ and $`R_0=0.975R`$ (marked as $``$). The lower panel presents the actual surface magnetic fields (as a function of normalized altitude $`z=r/R`$) for both cases, however, the proximity of the structures makes it difficult to distinguish them in the plotted scale. The abscissa is labelled by the azimuthal angle $`\theta `$ (magnetic colatitude), which measures the polar cap radius in radians. For a purely dipolar magnetic field $`r_p=R\mathrm{sin}\theta _d10^4P^{1/2}`$ cm, which corresponds to $`|\theta _d|0.01`$ radians (marked by two vertical dotted lines). The actual polar cap is much narrower, with $`|\theta _s|0.004`$ radians (marked by two vertical dashed lines) or $`r_s0.4r_d`$. Near the last open magnetic field lines (thick lines in the lower panel) $`b=6.7`$ ($``$) and $`b=7.2`$ ($``$), respectively.

Fig. 3 shows the average normalized curvature $`\rho _c=1/_c`$ of the two outermost (thick) magnetic field lines shown in Fig. 2. The horizontal axis is labelled by $`\zeta =z1`$, where $`z=r/R`$ (Fig. 2). The dashed vertical line corresponds to the characteristic gap height $`h500`$ cm. As follows from the parameter space marked by the gray area in Fig. 1, the normalized radius of curvature $`1\stackrel{<}{_{}}_6\stackrel{<}{_{}}3`$ and thus the normalized curvature $`0.33\stackrel{<}{_{}}\rho _c\stackrel{<}{_{}}1`$. Therefore, conditions for the formation of the ICS-NTVG are satisfied within the gray area marked in Fig. 3. This corresponds to an annular region at the periphery of the polar cap (with size comparable with the gap height $`h_{ICS}0.15r_p)`$, and can accommodate only one ring of 20 drifting sparks (with $`𝒟h_{ICS}`$). Within the central region inside this ring, the polar gap with sparking discharges cannot develop. Thus, either the central part of the beam of PSR B0943$`+`$10 is radio-quiet (hollow-cone) or its radio emission is driven by the stationary free-flow (e.g. Sharleman et al. 1978) instead of nonstationary spark-associated flow (RS75).

As it can be seen from Fig. 3, the crust-origin magnetic field decays rapidly with altitude and at $`\zeta >0.3`$ ($`z>1.3`$) the normalized curvature $`\rho _c0.007`$ ($`_6150`$), suggesting almost for purely dipolar field. Moreover, the sign of $`\rho _c`$ in the region of dipolar field lines is negative, while within the gap (and its vicinity) $`\rho _c`$ is positive. Thus, the geometry of the surface magnetic fields lines within the gap is converging, implying that the radius of curvature is directed towards the pole (opposite to the case of diverging dipolar field lines). Therefore, the magnetic field driven spark discharges will tend to occupy the peripheral areas of the polar cap, instead of moving rapidly towards the pole (Cheng & Ruderman, 1977; Filippenko & Radhakrishnan, 1982). This should have a stabilizing effect on the arrangement of 20 sparks circulating around the perimeter of the polar cap in PSR B0943$`+`$10.

## 4 Summary

In this paper we explored consequences of the vacuum gap model interpretation of drifting subpulses in PSR B0943$`+`$10, where 20 sparks move circumferentially around the perimeter of the polar cap, each completing one circulation in 37 pulsar periods (DR99, DR01). Both the characteristic spark dimension $`𝒟`$ and mutual distance $`d`$ between adjacent sparks are assumed to be about the polar gap height $`h`$. The formation of the vacuum gap requires extremely strong non-dipolar surface magnetic (GM01). We considered both the CR and resonant ICS seed photons as sources of electron-positron pairs and determined the parameter space for the surface magnetic field structure in each case. For the CR-NTVG ($`k=0.5`$) the surface magnetic field strength $`B_s>2\times 10^{13}`$ G and the radius of curvature of surface field lines $`6\times 10^4\mathrm{cm}<<12\times 10^4\mathrm{cm}`$, while for the resonant ICS-NTVG $`B_s>2\times 10^{13}`$ G and $`10^6\mathrm{cm}<<3\times 10^6\mathrm{cm}`$ (in both cases $`B_s<B_q4.4\times 10^{13}`$ G). Our modelling favours ICS-NTVG formation (refer Fig. 1) although CR-NTVG cannot be excluded. The ICS photon driven vacuum gap supported by the magnetic field structure determined by this parameter space guarantees a system of 20 sparks with $`𝒟dh_{ICS}`$, circulating around the perimeter of the polar cap by means of the $`𝐄\times 𝐁`$ drift in about 37 pulsar periods. This phenomenon is most probably observed in the form of drifting subpulses in PSR B0943$`+`$10.

We modelled the magnetic field structure using a simple and quite general model in which the actual surface magnetic field at the polar cap is a superposition of global core-anchored dipole $`𝐁_d`$ (inferred from pulsar spin down) and local crust-anchored dipole $`𝐁_m`$ (Gil et al., 2002). Since $`B_d=6.4\times 10^{12}(P\dot{P})^{1/2}\mathrm{G}=4\times 10^{12}`$ G, then in order to obtain $`𝐁_s(2÷3)\times 10^{13}`$ G one needs to assume $`B_mB_d`$ and the same polarity of both components. Following the symmetry suggested by observed patterns of drifting subpulses in PSR B0943$`+`$10, we placed the local dipole axis at the polar cap center. Two examples of model solutions $`(b,)`$ are shown in Fig. 1 marked as $``$ and $``$ within the gray area. More details concerning these two solutions are presented in Figs. 2 and 3. Our modelling yields a number of important conclusions: (i) The conditions for the formation of the ICS-NTVG are satisfied only at peripheral ring-like region of the polar cap which can just accommodate a system of 20 $`𝐄\times 𝐁`$ drifting sparks with $`𝒟dh_{ICS}`$. (ii) The surface magnetic field lines within the actual gap are converging, which stabilizes the $`𝐄\times 𝐁`$ drifting sparks by preventing them from rushing towards the pole (as in the case of diverging dipolar field). (iii) No model solutions could be obtained close to or above the line (3) in Fig. 1 (especially for $`_6>1.5`$), corresponding to the efficiency parameter2 $`k=1`$. This means that $`k\stackrel{<}{_{}}0.8`$ ($``$ in Fig. 1), at least in PSR B0943$`+`$10. (iv) We find no model solutions in the range $`b`$ 7 to 10 and $`_6`$ 0.06 to 0.12, corresponding to the CR-NTVG parameter space (not shown in Fig. 1). This favors the ICS-NTVG in PSR B0943$`+`$10. We emphasize that conclusions (ii)-(iv) result from a specific dependence of $`b`$ on $`_b`$ following from central position of the local surface dipole $`𝐁_m`$, which seems to be justified in this case by apparent symmetries inferred from the observational data of PSR B0943$`+`$10.

The sparks inherent to the vacuum gap model not only provide a natural explanation for drifting subpulses but they also imply a mechanism of their radio emission. Melikidze et al. (2000) proposed a spark-associated model for coherent pulsar radio emission by means of curvature radiation of charged relativistic solitons and we will apply this model to the ICS-NTVG in PSR B0943$`+`$10 in the forthcoming paper.

###### Acknowledgements.

This paper is supported in part by the Grant 2 P03D 008 19 of the Polish State Committee for Scientific Research. We are grateful to B. Zhang and B. Rudak for helpful comments. DM would like to thank Institute of Astronomy, University of Zielona Góra, for support and hospitality during his visit to the institute, where this work was started. We thank E. Gil for technical assistance and Floris van der Tak for careful reading of the manuscript.


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# Non-connected toric Hilbert schemes

## Introduction

The graph of triangulations of a finite point set $`A^d`$ has as vertices all the triangulations of $`A`$ and as edges certain natural local modifications of them, analogous to the bistellar flips considered in combinatorial topology . See the precise definition in Section 1. This graph is interesting in several contexts:

In Geometric Combinatorics, its study is a special case of the Generalized Baues problem, which includes monotone paths on polytopes, zonotopal tilings, or the extension space of realizable oriented matroids as other cases. See the survey , or .

In Computational Geometry, triangulations are a standard tool and flips have been often proposed as a method to explore the space of all possible triangulations or search for optimal ones (e.g., the Delaunay one). See  or the survey .

In Algebraic Geometry, lattice polytopes and triangulations of them are closely related to toric varieties . In particular, the graph of triangulations of a point set $`A`$ is connected if and only if the Chow variety  of $`A`$ is connected (see Corollary 4.9 in ). The same question for the *toric Hilbert scheme*  of the point set is not clear. Even though Sturmfels and Haiman  have recently constructed a natural morphism from the toric Hilbert scheme to the toric Chow variety, this morphism is in general not surjective. In particular, it remained open until the present construction whether non-connected toric Hilbert schemes existed. The solution we present here uses the result, due to Maclagan and Thomas , that at least the subgraph induced by unimodular triangulations of $`A`$ has a faithful relation to the toric Hilbert scheme. See Section 1.4.

More details on these interrelations can also be found in , where we constructed the first example of a point set whose graph of triangulations is not connected, in dimension 6 with 324 points. Here we show much smaller examples. The essential new idea is that we construct triangulations with sub-structures which cannot be destroyed by flips, rather than triangulations without flips. This gives more flexibility to the construction, and it also saves us several technicalities in the proofs.

The paper is organized as follows: in Section 1 we give the precise definition of the graph of triangulations and the main ingredients needed to prove that the graph is not connected in our examples, summarized in Theorem 1.5 and its Corollary 1.6. This section describes also the connection between the graph of triangulations and the toric Hilbert scheme.

The other two sections describe our two point sets $`A_{50}`$ and $`A_{26}`$ and prove that their graphs of triangulations and their toric Hilbert schemes are not connected. These point sets have 50 and 26 points respectively, both in dimension 5. The reason why we include both, and not only the smaller one, is that $`A_{50}`$ is simpler to describe and it has stronger properties which make it easier to prove what we need. More precisely,

$$A_{50}=\left(A\{O\}\right)\times \{0,1\}$$

where $`A`$ and $`O`$ are, respectively, the set of vertices and the centroid of the regular 24-cell in $`^4`$. The point set $`A_{26}`$ is related to the regular cross-polytope, but not in such a direct way.

Our main results (Theorem 2.1, Theorem 3.4 and Propositions 2.5 and 3.6) can be summarized as:

###### Theorem 1.

The 5-dimensional point sets $`A_{26}`$ and $`A_{50}`$, with 26 and 50 points respectively, have the following properties:

1. Their graphs of triangulations are not connected.
2. Their toric Hilbert schemes are not connected (for $`A_{26}`$, the scheme is considered with respect to a non-homogeneous grading).
3. The graphs of triangulations remain non-connected under suitable perturbations of the point sets into convex position. In particular, there is a 5-dimensional polytope with 26 vertices whose graph of triangulations is not connected.

Concerning part (3), a lifting construction mentioned in  already allowed us to obtain polytopes with a non-connected space of triangulation, but only after a drastic explosion to dimension 234.

Thanks to symmetries, we can even be more precise: the graphs of triangulations (and the toric Hilbert schemes) of $`A_{26}`$ and $`A_{50}`$ have at least 17 and 13 connected components respectively. In $`A_{50}`$, each of these 13 components contains at least $`3^{48}`$ unimodular triangulations. The corresponding connected components in the toric Hilbert scheme have dimension at least 96, in contrast to the fact that the coherent irreducible component has dimension $`5051=44`$ (Corollary 2.4).

The point set $`A_{50}`$ has an additional feature: it equals the set of lattice points in a lattice polytope $`Q`$. Point sets of this type play an even more important role in toric geometry than general lattice point sets. Actually, because the construction of  did not have this property the following assertion of V. Alexeev \[1, p.705, question 6\] was not completely true: “A recent example of F. Santos shows that the moduli space $`M_Q`$ is in general not connected, where $`Q`$ is a lattice polytope”. The assertion is true, however, for the polytope $`Q=\text{conv}(A_{50})`$:

###### Theorem 2.

The moduli space of all stable semiabelic toric pairs of type bounded by the product $`Q`$ of a segment and a 24-cell (w.r.t. the lattice generated by the vertex set of $`Q`$) has at least 13 connected components, each of dimension at least 96 and each with at least $`3^{48}`$ torus fixed points.

###### Proof.

It follows from Corollary 4.9 of  and the discussion preceding it that the moduli space in the statement has the same number of connected components as the graph of triangulations of the set of lattice points in $`Q`$.

The dimension bound follows the ideas detailed in the proof of Corollary 2.4 for the toric Hilbert scheme. There, we show that in any of the 13 connected components of the graph of triangulations of $`A_{50}`$ there are triangulations refining a certain subdivision $`S_0`$ whose only minimal non-simplicial cells are 48 different octahedra. We then argue on the state polytope of a certain $`A_{50}`$-graded ideal whose existence is guaranteed by our Lemma 1.10.

For the present statement the situation is even simpler: Theorem 2.13.3 in  says that the *generalized secondary polytope* (cf. \[1, Section 2.12\] or \[17, Section 4\]) of any subdivision of $`A_{50}`$ is the image of a certain stratum in the moduli space of the statement. For our subdivision $`S_0`$, the generalized secondary polytope is 96-dimensional and has $`3^{48}`$ vertices: it is a product of 48 triangles. ∎

It is even possible to obtain a lattice point set that *simultaneously* satisfies all the properties stated above. It is obtained from $`A_{50}`$ via the so-called reoriented Lawrence construction introduced in \[19, Section 4.4\].

Even if the present constructions improve considerably those in , they still leave open some of the problems mentioned there:

* Can the graphs of triangulations be non-connected for point sets of *dimensions 3 and 4*? Dimension 3 is specially important for Computational Geometry and Engineering applications. In dimension 2 the graph of triangulations is easily proved to be connected.
* Can the graphs of triangulations be non-connected for point sets *in general position*? General position (i.e., no $`d+2`$ points lie in an affine hyperplane) is interesting in applied areas. Also, a disconnected graph of triangulations for a point set in general position would imply that the refinement poset of subdivisions of either the whole point set or a proper subset of it is disconnected too. Connectivity of this poset is still open. Its study is sometimes referred to as the *generalized Baues problem* for triangulations. See  or the introduction to  for more details.
* Can the graphs of triangulations be non-connected for *Lawrence polytopes*? This would provide realizable oriented matroids with non-connected extension space. See more information on this, for example, in the introduction to .

## 1. Triangulations and flips.

### 1.1. Triangulations and flips of point sets.

A triangulation of a finite point set $`A^d`$ is a geometric simplicial complex with vertex set contained in $`A`$ and which covers the convex hull of $`A`$.

Geometric bistellar flips are local operations which transform one triangulation of $`A`$ into another. Essentially, they correspond to switching between the two triangulations of a minimal affinely dependent subset of $`A`$. More precisely: Every minimal dependent subset $`ZA`$ can be divided in a unique way in two parts $`Z^+`$ and $`Z^{}`$ whose convex hulls intersect. We call the ordered pair $`(Z^+,Z^{})`$ a *circuit* of $`A`$. (This deviates slightly from the standard oriented matroid terminology, in which $`Z`$ is a circuit and $`(Z^+,Z^{})`$ an oriented circuit). The only two triangulations of $`Z`$ are:

$$T_+(Z):=\{SZ:Z^+S\},T_{}(Z):=\{SZ:Z^{}S\}.$$

###### Definition 1.1.

Let $`T`$ be a triangulation of $`A`$ and let $`(Z^+,Z^{})A`$ be a circuit of $`A`$. Suppose that the following conditions are satisfied:

1. The triangulation $`T_+(Z)`$ is a sub-complex of $`T`$.
2. All the maximal simplices of $`T_+(Z)`$ have the same link $`L`$ in $`T`$. In particular, $`T_+(Z)L`$ is a sub-complex of $`T`$. Here $`AB:=\{ST:SA,TB\}`$ is the *join* of two simplicial complexes.

Then, we can obtain a new triangulation $`T^{}`$ of $`A`$ replacing the sub-complex $`T_+(Z)L`$ of $`T`$ by the complex $`T_{}(Z)L`$. This operation is called a geometric bistellar operation or geometric bistellar flip (or a flip, for short) supported on the circuit $`(Z^+,Z^{})`$.

This definition is literally taken from . It originally comes from \[7, Chapter 7\], where it is called a modification. See also \[13, p.287\]. The following arguments will help convince the reader that it is the right concept of minimal or elementary change between triangulations:

1. There is a certain subset of all triangulations of $`A`$, called regular or coherent, which are in bijection with the vertex set of a polytope of dimension $`|A|d1`$ (the *secondary polytope* of $`A`$). The edges of this polytope are in bijection with flips between regular triangulations .
2. Triangulations are the minimal elements in the poset of polyhedral subdivisions of $`A`$, with the partial order given by refinement. Flips are the “next to minimal” elements, in the following well-defined sense: any subdivision whose only proper refinements are triangulations has exactly two proper refinements and they are triangulations related by a flip. Conversely, every flip arises in this way \[20, Corollary 4.5 and Proposition 5.3\].

### 1.2. Locally acyclic orientations

Let $`A`$ be a point set in $`^d`$. Let $`I=[0,1]`$. If $`T`$ is a triangulation of $`A`$, we abbreviate as $`T\times I`$ the polyhedral subdivision of $`A\times \{0,1\}`$ into prisms $`\sigma \times I`$, $`\sigma T`$. We are interested in studying the triangulations of $`A\times \{0,1\}`$ that refine a given such subdivision.

For the refining process we need to understand triangulations of the prism $`\mathrm{\Delta }^d\times I`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }^d`$ is a simplex of dimension $`d`$. The following description appears in  and ; see also \[18, Section 3\]. It can be rephrased as saying that all triangulations of $`\mathrm{\Delta }^d\times I`$ are staircase triangulations.

###### Proposition 1.2.

Let the vertices of $`\mathrm{\Delta }^d\times I`$ be labeled $`\{a_1,\mathrm{},a_{d+1},b_1,`$, $`b_{d+1}\}`$ so that the $`a_i`$’s are the vertices of the facet $`\mathrm{\Delta }^d\times \{0\}`$ and each $`b_i`$ is the vertex corresponding to $`a_i`$ in the opposite facet $`\mathrm{\Delta }^d\times \{1\}`$. Then:

1. There is a bijection between triangulations of $`\mathrm{\Delta }^d\times I`$ and linear orderings (permutations) of the numbers $`\{1,\mathrm{},d+1\}`$. The triangulation corresponding to the ordering $`(s_1,\mathrm{},s_{d+1})`$ has the following $`d+1`$ maximal simplices:

$$\left\{\{a_{s_1},\mathrm{},a_{s_i},b_{s_i}\mathrm{},b_{s_{d+1}}\}:i=1,\mathrm{},d+1\right\}.$$
2. Two triangulations of $`\mathrm{\Delta }^d\times I`$ differ by a bistellar flip if and only if the corresponding orderings differ by a transposition of a pair of consecutive elements.

In particular, we get the following result, where a *locally acyclic orientation* of the 1-skeleton of a simplicial complex is an orientation of all its edges which is acyclic on every simplex.

###### Proposition 1.3.

The triangulations of $`A\times \{0,1\}`$ which can be obtained by refining the product $`T\times I`$ are in bijection with the locally acyclic orientations of the 1-skeleton of $`T`$. Flips between such triangulations correspond to reversal of single edges.

###### Proof.

A locally acyclic orientation induces a linear ordering on every simplex $`\sigma `$ of $`T`$: $`i<j`$ iff there is an arrow from $`i`$ to $`j`$. We can use this to triangulate $`\sigma \times I`$. The triangulations so obtained agree on common faces of any two prisms because the linear orderings agree on the intersection of any two simplices. Conversely, a refinement of $`T\times I`$ triangulates in particular each prism $`\sigma \times I`$, hence it induces a linear ordering on the vertices of every simplex $`\sigma `$ of $`T`$. ∎

The triangulation of $`A\times \{0,1\}`$ obtained from a certain locally acyclic orientation of $`T`$ is characterized by the following property: for every edge $`\{v,w\}`$ of $`T`$, directed from $`v`$ to $`w`$, the triangulation uses the diagonal $`\{(v,0),(w,1)\}`$ in the quadrilateral $`\{(v,0),(w,0),(v,1),(w,1)\}`$ of $`T\times I`$.

We will be specially interested in locally acyclic orientations of $`T`$ without reversible edges, meaning that every single-edge reversal creates a cycle in a simplex. The smallest one we know of has 11 vertices and dimension 3. A slightly bigger example, with 15 vertices, can be obtained as a Schlëgel diagram of the boundary of the example considered in Remark 3.4 of .

Unfortunately, Proposition 1.3 does not imply that locally acyclic orientations of $`T`$ produce refinements of $`T\times I`$ without flips. They only produce refinements of $`T\times I`$ none of whose flip neighbors refine $`T\times I`$.

### 1.3. Freezing sub-complexes in triangulations

All we have mentioned so far is essentially present in . The new ingredient in this paper is that we focus on restrictions of triangulations to sub-complexes of faces. Let $`F`$ be a face of the polytope $`\text{conv}(A)`$. It is obvious that every triangulation of $`A`$ restricts to a triangulation of $`FA`$. Our next statement says that the same happens for flips:

###### Proposition 1.4.

If $`F`$ is a face of $`\text{conv}(A)`$ and $`T`$ and $`T^{}`$ are triangulations of $`A`$ differing by a flip, then $`T`$ and $`T^{}`$ restricted to $`F`$ either coincide or differ by a flip on a circuit contained in $`F`$.

###### Proof.

The only simplices of a triangulation that are removed by a flip are those containing the negative part of the circuit $`Z`$ in which the flip is supported. For $`T`$ restricted to $`F`$ to be affected by the flip it is necessary that $`Z^{}F`$ and, being a face, then $`Z^+F`$ too. Hence, the circuit is contained in $`F`$ and the flip restricts to a flip in $`F`$. ∎

More generally, let $`𝒦`$ be a simplicial sub-complex of the face complex of $`\text{conv}(A)`$. With the word *simplicial* we do not only mean that every $`F𝒦`$ is a simplex, but also that $`FA`$ is affinely independent for every $`F𝒦`$. That is, that $`FA`$ is the vertex set of $`F`$. By a triangulation of $`𝒦\times I`$ we mean any geometric simplicial complex $`T`$ with vertex set contained in $`A\times \{0,1\}`$ satisfying that: (1) every simplex of $`T`$ is contained in one of the products $`F\times I`$, $`F𝒦`$; and (2) $`_{\sigma T}\text{conv}(\sigma )=_{F𝒦}F\times I.`$

The following result has essentially the same proof as Proposition 1.3, taking into account Proposition 1.4 and the following observation: for every face $`F`$ in $`𝒦`$, $`F\times I`$ is a face of $`\text{conv}(A)\times I`$. In particular, every triangulation of $`𝒦\times I`$ induces a triangulation of $`F\times I`$.

###### Theorem 1.5.

Let $`𝒦`$ be a simplicial subcomplex of the face complex of $`\text{conv}(A)`$, for a finite point set $`A`$. Triangulations of $`𝒦\times I`$ are in bijection with locally acyclic orientations of the 1-skeleton of $`𝒦`$. Flips between triangulations correspond to locally acyclic orientations differing on the reversal of a single edge. ∎

###### Corollary 1.6.

In the above conditions, let $`A^{}`$ be any point set in $`^{d+1}`$ containing $`A\times \{0,1\}`$ such that for every $`F𝒦`$ the following two conditions hold:

* $`F\times I`$ is still a face of $`\text{conv}(A^{})`$, and
* $`F\times I`$ contains no point of $`A^{}`$ other than its vertex set.

Then, “restriction to $`𝒦\times I`$” induces a simplicial (in particular, continuous) map from the graph of triangulations of $`A^{}`$ to the graph of locally acyclic orientations of $`𝒦`$. (Edges in the latter are single-edge reversals).

In particular, if $`𝒦`$ has a locally acyclic orientation without reversible edges and the corresponding triangulation of $`𝒦\times I`$ can be extended to a triangulation of $`A^{}`$, then the graph of triangulations of $`A^{}`$ is not connected.

###### Proof.

The conditions on $`A^{}`$ imply that restriction of triangulations of $`A^{}`$ to $`𝒦\times I`$ is a well-defined operation and, by Theorem 1.5, the restricted triangulations can be considered elements in the graph of locally acyclic orientations of $`𝒦`$. The map is simplicial by Proposition 1.4.

The last sentence in the statement holds because a triangulation extending (the triangulation of $`𝒦\times I`$ corresponding to) a locally acyclic orientation without reversible edges will not be connected by flips to a triangulation extending any other locally acyclic orientation. For example, one extending any globally acyclic orientation of edges of $`𝒦`$, which clearly has reversible edges and can be extended to a lexicographic triangulation of $`A^{}`$. ∎

### 1.4. Unimodular triangulations and the toric Hilbert scheme.

Let $`A=\{a_1,\mathrm{},a_n\}^d`$ be a rational point set. We transform the *point* configuration $`A`$ into a *vector* configuration $`𝒜=\{𝐚_1,\mathrm{},𝐚_n\}^{d+1}`$, by choosing a positive integer $`l_i`$ for each $`i=1,\mathrm{},n`$ and letting $`𝐚_i=(l_ia_i,l_i)^{d+1}`$. We assume, without loss of generality, that $`𝒜`$ has only integer entries. The standard choice of scaling factors $`l_i`$ is the *homogeneous* one, with $`l_i=1`$ for every $`i`$, but in Section 3 we need a different one.

As detailed in \[22, Chapter 10\], we use $`𝒜`$ to define a $`(d1)`$-dimensional multi-grading on the polynomial ring $`k[x_1,\mathrm{},x_n]`$, assigning multi-degree $`𝐚_i`$ to the variable $`x_i`$. Ideals $`Ik[x_1,\mathrm{},x_n]`$ that are homogeneous with respect to this grading have a well-defined Hilbert function

$$\begin{array}{ccc}𝒜& & \\ 𝐛& & dim_kI_𝐛\end{array}$$

where $``$ is the set of non-negative integers, $`𝒜`$ is the semigroup of non-negative integer combinations of $`𝒜`$ and for each $`𝐛𝒜`$, $`I_𝐛`$ is the part of degree $`𝐛`$ of $`I`$.

The most natural $`𝒜`$-homogeneous ideal is the toric ideal $`I_𝒜`$ of $`𝒜`$, generated by the binomials

$$\{x_1^{\lambda _1}\mathrm{}x_n^{\lambda _n}x_1^{\mu _1}\mathrm{}x_n^{\mu _n}:\lambda ,\mu ^n,\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}(\lambda _i\mu _i)𝐚_i=0\}.$$

For every $`𝐛𝒜`$, $`(I_𝒜)_𝐛`$ has codimension one in $`(k[x_1,\mathrm{},x_n])_𝐛`$. This characterizes the Hilbert function of $`I_𝐛`$.

###### Definition 1.7.

An $`𝒜`$-homogeneous ideal $`Ik[x_1,\mathrm{},x_n]`$ is called *$`𝒜`$-graded* if it has the same Hilbert function as the toric ideal.

Most of the literature on $`𝒜`$-graded ideals, starting with , assume $`𝒜`$ (hence $`A`$) to have non-negative entries. In our context this is not important: if $`A`$ has negative entries, then $`𝒜`$ can be mapped to a non-negative configuration by a unimodular transformation, and the concept of $`𝒜`$-graded ideal is invariant under such transformations. It is not invariant, however, under change of choice of the scalars $`l_i`$.

$`𝒜`$-graded ideals include all the initial ideals (more generally, all the toric deformations) of $`I_𝒜`$. The toric Hilbert scheme, as introduced by Peeva and Stillman , is the set of all $`𝒜`$-graded ideals with a suitable algebraic structure defined by some determinantal equations. (An equivalent description via binomial equations appeared in \[23, Section 6\]). See also .

Sturmfels \[22, Theorem 10.10\] proved that every $`𝒜`$-graded ideal $`I`$ has canonically associated a polyhedral subdivision $`S_I`$ of $`A`$. Observe that subdivisions of $`A`$, in the affine setting used in this paper, coincide with subdivisions of $`𝒜`$ in the linear setting used in \[22, Chapter 10\]. If $`I`$ is monomial, then $`S_I`$ is a triangulation, whose simplices are the standard monomials in $`k[x_1,\mathrm{},x_n]/\text{Rad}(I)`$. In other words, $`S_I`$ is the triangulation whose Stanley-Reisner ideal equals the radical of $`I`$.

This produces a map $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ from the toric Hilbert scheme of $`𝒜`$ to the poset of all polyhedral subdivisions of $`A`$. (This map factors via the morphism to the Chow variety constructed in , followed by the natural map from the Chow variety to the poset of subdivisions). Maclagan and Thomas  go further and construct a graph of monomial $`𝒜`$-graded ideals (mono-$`𝒜`$-GIs for short) by suitably defining a concept of flip between mono-$`𝒜`$-GIs with the following properties:

###### Proposition 1.8.

1. The toric Hilbert scheme is connected if and only if the graph of mono-$`𝒜`$-GIs is connected.
2. The triangulations of $`A`$ corresponding to neighboring mono-$`𝒜`$-GIs either coincide or differ by a geometric bistellar flip.

This does not imply that a non-connected graph of triangulations provides a non-connected toric Hilbert scheme, because the map $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is in general not surjective \[22, Example 10.13\], . However, Maclagan and Thomas make the observation, based on \[22, Theorem 10.14\], that the image of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ contains all the unimodular triangulations of $`𝒜`$. A *unimodular triangulation* of $`𝒜`$ is one in which every maximal simplex is a basis for the lattice spanned by $`𝒜`$.

###### Corollary 1.9.

The toric Hilbert scheme has at least as many connected components as connected components of the graph of triangulations contain unimodular triangulations. ∎

To prove the dimension bound of Corollary 2.4 we need the following generalization of (one direction of) Theorem 10.14 of :

###### Lemma 1.10.

Let $`S`$ be a subdivision of $`𝒜`$ with the property that every cell $`\sigma S`$ can be covered by unimodular simplices with vertex set contained in $`\sigma `$. Then, there is an $`𝒜`$-graded ideal of the form $`_{\sigma S}J_\sigma `$, where each $`J_\sigma `$ is torus isomorphic to the toric ideal of the set $`\sigma `$.

In particular, $`S`$ is in the image of the map $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$.

###### Proof.

The proof follows the ideas in \[22, Theorem 10.14\]. For each cell $`\sigma S`$, let $`I_\sigma `$ denote the usual toric ideal of the vertex set of $`\sigma `$ and define

$$J_\sigma =I_\sigma +x_j:j\sigma .$$

We claim that $`I_S:=_{\sigma S}J_\sigma `$ is indeed $`𝒜`$-graded.

Let $`𝐛𝒜`$, and let $`\sigma `$ be a cell of $`S`$ whose cone contains $`𝐛`$. The claim follows from the following three assertions: (1) all monomials of degree $`𝐛`$ with support not in $`\sigma `$ are in $`I_S`$, because none of them has support contained in a cell of $`S`$; hence they are in the monomial part of every component of $`I_S`$. (2) all monomials of degree $`𝐛`$ with support in $`\sigma `$ are equal modulo $`I_S`$, because $`I_S`$ contains $`I_\sigma `$. (3) there are monomials of degree $`𝐛`$ not in $`I_S`$: by our covering hypothesis, there is a unimodular simplex $`\tau `$ contained in $`\sigma `$ and whose cone contains $`𝐛`$. Consider the unique positive combination $`_{i\tau }\lambda _i𝐚_i`$ that gives $`𝐛`$. This combination is integer since $`\tau `$ is unimodular. The corresponding monomial $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{i\sigma }x_i^{\lambda _i}`$ is clearly not in $`I_\sigma +x_j:j\sigma =J_\sigma `$, hence not in $`I_S`$.

That $`\mathrm{\Phi }(I_S)=S`$ is essentially the definition of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$; see \[22, Theorem 10.10\]. ∎

## 2. A construction with 50 points, based on the 24-cell

The 24-cell is one of the six regular 4-dimensional polytopes. Its 24 vertices are:

* The 8 points $`\pm 2e_i`$.
* The 16 points $`(\pm 1,\pm 1,\pm 1,\pm 1)`$.

Let $`A`$ consist of these 24 vertices. Let $`O`$ be the origin and let $`𝒦`$ be the 2-skeleton of the 24-cell, which consists of 96 triangles and 96 edges. Let

$$A_{50}:=(A\{O\})\times \{0,1\}.$$

###### Theorem 2.1.

The 5-dimensional point configuration with 50 elements $`A_{50}`$ has a non-connected space of triangulations and its homogenized version $`𝒜_{50}=A_{50}\times \{1\}`$ has a non-connected toric Hilbert scheme.

###### Proof.

We show below that the 2-skeleton $`𝒦`$ of the 24-cell can be given a locally acyclic orientation with no reversible edges (Lemma 2.2) and that the triangulation of $`𝒦\times I`$ corresponding to this orientation can be extended to a unimodular triangulation $`T^{}`$ of $`A_{50}`$ (Lemma 2.3). Since $`A_{50}`$ satisfies the conditions required for $`A^{}`$ in Corollary 1.6, its graph of triangulations is not connected. Unimodularity of $`T^{}`$ implies that the toric Hilbert scheme of $`𝒜_{50}:=A_{50}\times \{1\}^6`$ is not connected either, via Corollary 1.9. ∎

In the rest of this section we fill in the details in this proof and prove more precise quantitative results, and that the graph of triangulations of $`A_{50}`$ remains not connected when its only two non-vertices $`(O,0)`$ and $`(O,1)`$ are moved into convex position.

The facets of the 24-cell are 24 octahedra. One of them is the octahedron with vertices $`(2,0,0,0)`$, $`(0,2,0,0)`$, $`(1,1,1,1)`$, $`(1,1,1,1)`$, $`(1,1,1,1)`$ and $`(1,1,1,1)`$. We denote it $`F_{1,1,0,0}`$. From this we get three other octahedra $`F_{1,1,0,0}`$, $`F_{1,1,0,0}`$ and $`F_{1,1,0,0}`$ by the rotation of order 4 on the first two coordinates. And from these four we get the rest of the octahedra by permuting coordinates.

The subindices in each octahedron give the coordinates of its centroid. The 24-cell is self-polar: These 24 centroids are the vertices of another regular (and smaller) 24-cell. Our coordinates are chosen to highlight the symmetries of the 24-cell that we are interested in.

We orient the edges in $`F_{1,1,0,0}`$ with a source at $`(2,0,0,0)`$, a sink at $`(0,2,0,0)`$ and a cycle of length 4 on the equatorial square $`(1,1,1,1)(1,1,1,1)(1,1,1,1)(1,1,1,1)`$. See Figure 1. Observe that among the 12 edges of this octahedron only the equatorial four can be reversed without creating a local cycle. We let the other 84 edges of the 24-cell be oriented by the action of the affine group $`G`$ of order 32 generated by the exchange of first two and last two coordinates and the rotation of order 4 on the plane of the first two coordinates (or of the last two coordinates).

###### Lemma 2.2.

This orientation of the 1-skeleton of $`𝒦`$ is well-defined, locally acyclic, and has no reversible edges.

###### Proof.

The orientation is well-defined because edges of $`F_{1,1,0,0}`$ in the same orbit under $`G`$ receive orientations compatible with the action. Indeed, the only symmetries in $`G`$ sending some edge of $`F_{1,1,0,0}`$ to another are the rotations on the last two coordinates (rotation around the vertical axis, in Figure 1) and they are compatible with the orientation given.

Under $`G`$, there are two orbits of octahedra in the 24-cell, 3 orbits of triangles and edges, and two orbits of vertices. The following are representatives of the three orbits of triangles, with their orientations indicated:

* $`(2,0,0,0)(1,1,1,1)(1,1,1,1)`$,
* $`(1,1,1,1)(1,1,1,1)(0,2,0,0)`$, and
* $`(1,1,1,1)(0,0,2,0)(1,1,1,1)`$.

This proves that the orientation is locally acyclic. The three orbits of edges have as representatives $`(2,0,0,0)(1,1,1,1)`$, $`(1,1,1,1)(0,2,0,0)`$, and $`(1,1,1,1)(1,1,1,1)`$. That is, the non-reversible edges of the three stated representatives of triangles. This proves that the orientation has no reversible edges. ∎

Actually, the symmetry group of the locally acyclic orientation we are using is larger than $`G`$. We leave it to the interested reader to check that it is an orientation-preserving group of order 96 and acts transitively over the 96 edges and over the 96 triangles in the 24-cell. It is generated by $`G`$ and, for example, the following orthogonal transformation:

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}x_1\\ x_2\\ x_3\\ x_4\end{array}\right)\frac{1}{2}\left(\begin{array}{c}x_1x_2+x_3+x_4\\ x_1+x_2x_3+x_4\\ x_1+x_2+x_3x_4\\ x_1+x_2+x_3+x_4\end{array}\right)$$

###### Lemma 2.3.

The triangulation $`T`$ of $`𝒦\times I`$ corresponding via Theorem 1.5 to this locally acyclic orientation of $`𝒦`$ can be extended to a unimodular triangulation $`T^{}`$ of $`A_{50}`$.

In the above statement, a triangulation of a lattice point set $`B^d`$ is called unimodular if every maximal simplex is an affine basis for the affine lattice spanned by $`B`$. Equivalently, if it is unimodular as a triangulation of the vector set $``$ obtained from $`B`$ with a homogeneous choice of scaling lengths.

###### Proof.

Let $`T_{1,1,0,0}`$ be the triangulation of the octahedron $`F_{1,1,0,0}`$ that uses the axis $`\{(2,0,0,0),(0,2,0,0)\}`$, oriented from $`(2,0,0,0)`$ to $`(0,2,0,0)`$. This triangulation extends in a locally acyclic way the orientation of edges of $`F_{1,1,0,0}`$.

Let $`T_0`$ be the triangulation of $`A\{O\}`$ obtained by first replicating $`T_{1,1,0,0}`$ to the other octahedra by the action of $`G`$ and then coning the triangulated boundary of the 24-cell to the centroid $`O`$. We also extend the orientation to all the boundary via $`G`$, and orient all the edges incident to $`O`$ with a source at $`O`$. This gives a locally acyclic orientation of the 1-skeleton of $`T_A`$ and, hence, a triangulation $`T^{}`$ of $`A_{50}`$ which refines $`T_0\times I`$. Since the orientation of $`T_0`$ extends the one we had in $`𝒦`$, $`T^{}`$ extends what we had in $`𝒦\times I`$.

Only unimodularity remains to be checked. Since a prism over a unimodular simplex is totally unimodular (meaning that all its triangulations are unimodular), every refinement of $`T_0\times I`$ will be unimodular as long as $`T_0`$ itself is unimodular. By symmetry, we only need to check that one of the 96 maximal simplices of $`T_0`$ is unimodular. For example, take the 4-simplex with vertex set $`(0,0,0,0)`$, $`(2,0,0,0)`$, $`(0,2,0,0)`$, $`(1,1,1,1)`$, $`(1,1,1,1)`$. This is unimodular (in the sub-lattice spanned by $`A\{0\}`$) because

$$\left|\begin{array}{ccccc}0& 2& 0& 1& 1\\ 0& 0& 2& 1& 1\\ 0& 0& 0& 1& 1\\ 0& 0& 0& 1& 1\\ 1& 1& 1& 1& 1\end{array}\right|=8$$

and the sub-lattice spanned by $`A\{O\}`$, given by the conditions “all coordinates have the same parity”, has index 8 in the integer lattice. ∎

That finishes the proof of Theorem 2.1. We now prove the quantitative results mentioned after Theorem 1 and that the graph of triangulations of $`A_{50}`$ remains unimodular in a convex-position version of the point set.

###### Corollary 2.4.

The graph of triangulations of $`A_{50}`$ and the toric Hilbert scheme of its homogenized version $`𝒜_{50}=A_{50}\times \{1\}`$ have at least 13 connected components, each with at least $`3^{48}`$ unimodular triangulations/monomial ideals. In the toric Hilbert scheme, each of these 13 connected components has dimension at least 96.

###### Proof.

Observe in Figure 1 that, out of the 48 symmetries of the octahedron $`F_{1,1,0,0}`$, only the four generated by the rotation around the vertical axis leave our locally acyclic orientation invariant. Hence, there are 12 ways of constructing a locally acyclic orientation with exactly the same properties. (This agrees with our claim that our locally acyclic orientation has 96 symmetries, since the symmetry group of the 24-cell has $`24\times 48=12\times 96`$ elements). Each of these 12 orientations is a different isolated element in the graph of locally acyclic orientations of $`𝒦`$, hence it produces a different connected component in the graph of triangulations of $`A_{50}`$. To these 12 we have to add the regular component of the graph, obtained for example by starting with a globally acyclic orientation of $`𝒦`$.

To prove the number $`3^{48}`$, observe the following: let $`F`$ be one of the 24 octahedra in the 24-cell. Let $`v`$ and $`w`$ be the source and sink of its orientation. In the triangulation $`T_0`$ of the proof of Lemma 2.3, $`F`$ is triangulated into four 3-simplices which are joined to the origin $`O`$. In particular, the two flips of the triangulation of $`F`$ are still flips in $`T_0`$.

Moreover, these four 4-simplices of $`T_0`$ have the same source $`O`$ and sink $`w`$. Hence, the copies of them in $`(AO)\times \{0\}`$ are joined in $`T^{}`$ to the same vertex of $`(AO)\times \{1\}`$ (namely $`(w,1)`$) and the copies of them in $`(AO)\times \{1\}`$ are joined to the same vertex of $`(AO)\times \{0\}`$ (namely $`(O,0)`$). This implies that the two flips in $`F`$ produce four flips in $`T^{}`$: Two with supporting circuit contained in the octahedron $`F\times \{0\}`$ and another two with supporting circuit in $`F\times \{1\}`$. Moreover, flips in different octahedra, out of the total of 48, are independent. Hence, from $`T^{}`$ we can at least reach the $`3^{48}`$ (including $`T^{}`$) triangulations obtained by these flips, which are all unimodular.

For the dimension bound, let $`S_0`$ be the subdivision of $`A_{50}`$ obtained from $`T_0`$ by making each of the 48 octahedra (and the two vertices coned to each of them) a single cell. Any refinement of this subdivision is unimodular, because the three triangulations of each octahedron are unimodular. By Lemma 1.10, there is an $`𝒜_{50}`$-graded ideal $`I_0`$ associated to that subdivision. Since $`I_0`$ is the sum of 48 independent copies of the toric ideal of an octahedron, the state polytope of $`I_0`$ (cf. ) is the product of 48 copies of a triangle, hence it has dimension 96. And the toric variety of the state polytope is immersed (modulo normalization) in the toric Hilbert scheme because every toric deformation of an $`𝒜`$-graded ideal is $`𝒜`$-graded as well. ∎

We can even be more precise; the subgraph induced by the $`3^{48}`$ triangulations/ideals mentioned in the statement of Corollary 2.4 is the 1-skeleton of the polytope $`(\mathrm{\Delta }^2)^{48}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2`$ is a triangle.

###### Proposition 2.5.

Let $`A_{50}^{}`$ be the point set obtained from $`A_{50}`$ by moving the points $`(O,0)`$ and $`(O,1)`$ to $`(O,\alpha )`$ and $`(O,\beta )`$, for any $`\alpha <0`$ and $`\beta >1`$. Then, $`A_{50}^{}`$ is in convex position and its graph of triangulations still has at least 13 components, each with at least $`3^{48}`$ triangulations.

###### Proof.

$`A_{50}^{}`$ is still a point set containing $`A\times \{0,1\}`$, and $`𝒦`$ satisfies the two hypotheses in Corollary 1.6. The only thing to prove is that our triangulation $`T`$ of $`𝒦\times I`$ extends to a triangulation of $`A_{50}^{}`$. Actually, the following is true: the same triangulation $`T^{}`$ of Lemma 2.3, considered in $`A_{50}^{}`$ with the substitution $`(O,0)(O,\alpha )`$ and $`(O,1)(O,\beta )`$ is still a triangulation of $`A_{50}^{}`$. This holds because the facets $`A\times \{0\}`$ and $`A\times \{1\}`$ of $`A_{50}`$ are centrally triangulated in $`T^{}`$ and the perturbed points $`(O,\alpha )`$ and $`(O,\beta )`$ lie beyond these facets of $`A_{50}`$ (with the standard meaning of beyond in polytope theory: a point lies beyond a facet $`F`$ of the polytope $`P`$ if only that facet is visible from the point). ∎

###### Remark 2.6.

We cannot say anything about the toric Hilbert scheme of $`A_{50}^{}`$, even if we assume $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ to be rational or even integer, because our triangulations are no longer unimodular in $`A_{50}^{}`$.

## 3. A construction with 26 points, based on the cross-polytope

In this section we let $`A^4`$ denote the vertex set of a regular cross-polytope, with centroid $`O`$:

$$A:=\{\pm e_1,\pm e_2,\pm e_3,\pm e_4\}^4,O=(0,0,0,0)^4.$$

The faces of the cross-polytope are 16 tetrahedra, 32 triangles, 24 edges and 8 vertices. Our complex $`𝒦`$ will contain all the 24 edges, but only 24 of the 32 triangles. The point set $`A_{26}^4`$ will contain the 18 points in

$$\left(A\{O\}\right)\times \{0,1\}$$

plus 8 points of the form $`(p,1/2)`$ where $`p`$ (essentially) runs over the centroids of the eight triangles missing in $`𝒦`$. See the definitions of $`𝒦`$ and $`A`$ below.

We will show that $`𝒦`$ can be given a locally acyclic orientation with no reversible edges, and that this orientation can be extended to a triangulation of $`A_{26}`$. Also, that this triangulation is unimodular when considered in a vector configuration $`𝒜_{26}`$ obtained from $`A_{26}`$ as in Section 1.4, but with a non-homogeneous choice of scaling factors. These facts imply that neither the graph of triangulations of $`A_{26}`$ nor the toric Hilbert scheme of $`𝒜_{26}`$ are connected.

Our construction is symmetric under the group $`G`$ of order six generated by the central symmetry and the rotation which cyclically permutes the first three coordinates:

$$(x_1,x_2,x_3,x_4)(x_2,x_3,x_1,x_4).$$

This group produces 4 orbits of edges, with six members each, and 6 orbits of triangles, one with two elements and five with six elements, We show them as columns in Tables 1 and 2. To save space we write $`\overline{e}_i`$ meaning $`e_i`$.

We orient edges in the way implicit in Table 1. That is, each edge is oriented from the first vertex listed to the second (this is clearly compatible with the action of $`G`$). Figure 2 may help understand the construction. It shows the star of $`e_4`$ in the boundary of the cross-polytope, which is an octahedron centrally triangulated into eight tetrahedra. This is half of the boundary of the cross-polytope; the other half is obtained by central symmetry and is not drawn. The edges in the figure have been oriented, and the reader can verify that only five of the triangles in the figure have cyclic orientations; namely, those belonging to the first two orbits of triangles in Table 2. Triangles in the last four orbits receive the acyclic orientation corresponding to the ordering in which their vertices are listed in the table.

Let $`𝒦`$ be the union of the last four orbits of triangles in Table 2.

###### Proposition 3.1.

The orientation given to the 1-skeleton is locally acyclic (in $`𝒦`$) and has no reversible edges.

###### Proof.

Check that indeed the last four orbits of triangles in Table 2 receive an acyclic orientation and that the non-reversible edges of these four orbits lie respectively in the four orbits of edges (only one representative triangle of each orbit needs to be checked). ∎

As in Section 2, the symmetry group of this locally acyclic orientation is actually larger than $`G`$. Let us denote it $`\stackrel{~}{G}`$. Apart from $`G`$, it contains for example the simultaneous rotation of order 4 in the planes of the first two and last two coordinates:

$$\rho (x_1,x_2,x_3,x_4)=(x_2,x_1,x_4,x_3).$$

###### Proposition 3.2.

$`\stackrel{~}{G}`$ is an orientation-preserving group of order 24 generated by $`G`$ and the above transformation $`\rho `$. It acts transitively over the 24 edges and 24 triangles of $`𝒦`$, and over the eight triangles not in $`𝒦`$.

###### Proof.

Since $`\rho `$ sends the edges $`\{e_1,e_2\}`$, $`\{e_2,e_3\}`$ and $`\{e_3,e_1\}`$ of the first $`G`$-orbit in Table 1 to edges in the other three $`G`$-orbits, respectively, the group generated by $`\rho `$ and $`G`$ (and hence $`\stackrel{~}{G}`$) acts transitively over the 24 edges of the 24-cell. Moreover, $`\stackrel{~}{G}`$ acts with trivial stabilizer on every edge, because every edge is the non-reversible edge of a unique triangle of $`𝒦`$, and the reflection on the hyperplane containing that triangle and the origin is not in $`\stackrel{~}{G}`$ (to check this consider any single triangle of $`𝒦`$, for example $`\{e_3,e_4,e_2\}`$).

This proves that $`\stackrel{~}{G}`$ is generated by $`G`$ and $`\rho `$, that it has order 24, and that it acts transitively over edges. It also acts transitively on triangles of $`𝒦`$ because every edge is the non-reversible edge of a different triangle. It acts transitively on the remaining eight triangles because $`\rho `$ sends the member $`\{e_1,e_2,e_3\}`$ of the first $`G`$-orbit to the member $`\{e_1,e_2,e_4\}`$ of the second $`G`$-orbit. ∎

Let $`T`$ denote the triangulation of $`𝒦\times I`$ corresponding to the locally acyclic orientation of the 1-skeleton of $`𝒦`$ we have described. It is clear that $`T`$ cannot be extended to a triangulation of $`(A\{O\})\times \{0,1\}`$, because the prism $`\{e_1,e_2,e_3\}\times \{0,1\}`$, for example, has its three quadrilateral faces triangulated in a non-extendable way. The same holds for the other 7 triangles not in $`𝒦`$. This is why we need to define the following point set $`A_{26}`$ with 26 elements, the first 18 of which are $`(A\{O\})\times \{0,1\}`$. Let $`A_{26}`$ consist of:

* The 8 points $`\pm a_i:=(\pm e_i,0)`$, $`i=1,2,3,4`$.
* The 8 points $`\pm b_i:=(\pm e_i,1)`$, $`i=1,2,3,4`$.
* The two points $`a_0:=(0,0,0,0,0)`$ and $`b_0:=(0,0,0,0,1)`$.
* The following eight points:

| $`c_{+,+,+,0}=(\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2},0,\frac{1}{2})`$, | $`c_{,,,0}=(\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2},0,\frac{1}{2})`$, |
| --- | --- |
| $`c_{+,,0,}=(\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2},0,\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2})`$, | $`c_{,+,0,+}=(\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2},0,\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2})`$, |
| $`c_{,0,+,}=(\frac{1}{2},0,\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2})`$, | $`c_{+,0,,+}=(\frac{1}{2},0,\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2})`$, |
| $`c_{0,+,,}=(0,\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2})`$, | $`c_{0,,+,+}=(0,\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2})`$. |

Observe that $`A_{26}`$ is compatible with the action of $`\stackrel{~}{G}`$ (times the trivial group acting on the fifth coordinate).

Recall that a point $`p`$ is said to lie *beyond* a certain facet $`F`$ of a polytope $`P`$ if it lies outside $`P`$ and $`F`$ is the only facet visible from $`p`$. We generalize this and say that $`p`$ lies beyond a face $`F`$ if the facets visible from $`p`$ are precisely those containing $`F`$. We do not allow $`p`$ to lie in any facet-defining hyperplane.

###### Lemma 3.3.

1. Each point $`c_{,,,}`$ lies beyond a face $`\sigma \times I`$ of $`\text{conv}(A)\times I`$, where $`\sigma `$ is one of the 8 triangles of $`\text{conv}(A)`$ missing in $`𝒦`$.
2. For each triangle $`\sigma 𝒦`$, $`\sigma \times I`$ is still a face in $`\text{conv}(A_{26})`$ and contains no point of $`A_{26}`$ other than its vertex set.

###### Proof.

By symmetry, we need to prove part (2) only for one triangle in $`𝒦`$ and part (1) only for one not in $`𝒦`$.

For part (1), let $`\sigma =\text{conv}(\{e_1,e_2,e_3\})`$. The statement is equivalent to saying that $`(1/2,1/2,1/2,0)`$ lies beyond $`\sigma `$ in $`\text{conv}(A)`$. This is easy to check: the facet-defining half-spaces of $`\text{conv}(A)`$ are those of the form $`\pm x_1\pm x_2\pm x_3\pm x_41`$, and the only ones not containing $`(1/2,1/2,1/2,0)`$ are $`+x_1+x_2+x_3+x_41`$ and $`+x_1+x_2+x_3x_41`$.

For part (2), let $`\sigma =\{e_4,e_1,e_2\}`$. We leave it to the reader to check that the functional

$$x_1+x_2x_3/2+x_4$$

on $`A_{26}`$ is maximized exactly on the six vertices of $`\sigma \times \{0,1\}`$. ∎

Let $`𝒜_{26}^6`$ be the vector configuration obtained from $`A_{26}`$ with scaling factor equal to 1 for the points $`a_{}`$ and $`b_{}`$ and equal to 2 for the points $`c_{,,,}`$. In other words, let $`𝒜`$ consist of:

* The 8 vectors $`\pm 𝐚_i:=(\pm e_i,0,1)`$, $`i=1,2,3,4`$.
* The 8 vectors $`\pm 𝐛_i:=(\pm e_i,1,1)`$, $`i=1,2,3,4`$.
* The two vectors $`𝐚_0:=(0,0,0,0,0,1)`$ and $`𝐛_0=(0,0,0,0,1,1)`$.
* The following eight vectors:

| $`𝐜_{+,+,+,0}=(1,1,1,0,1,2)`$, | $`𝐜_{,,,0}=(1,1,1,0,1,2)`$, |
| --- | --- |
| $`𝐜_{+,,0,}=(1,1,0,1,1,2)`$, | $`𝐜_{,+,0,+}=(1,1,0,1,1,2)`$, |
| $`𝐜_{,0,+,}=(1,0,1,1,1,2)`$, | $`𝐜_{+,0,,+}=(1,0,1,1,1,2)`$, |
| $`𝐜_{0,+,,}=(0,1,1,1,1,2)`$, | $`𝐜_{0,,+,+}=(0,1,1,1,1,2)`$. |

###### Theorem 3.4.

1. The triangulation $`T`$ of $`𝒦\times I`$ can be extended to a triangulation of $`A_{26}`$.
2. This extended triangulation is unimodular when considered in $`𝒜_{26}`$.

Before proving this, let us show its implications:

###### Corollary 3.5.

The graph of triangulations of $`A_{26}`$ and the toric Hilbert scheme of $`𝒜_{26}`$ have at least 17 connected components.

###### Proof.

Condition (2) in Lemma 3.3 says that we can apply Corollary 1.6 to $`𝒦`$ and $`A_{26}`$. By that corollary, the triangulation extending $`T`$ cannot be connected by flips to any triangulation with a different restriction to $`𝒦\times I`$, which implies that the graph of triangulations of $`A_{26}`$ (and, by unimodularity, the toric Hilbert scheme of $`𝒜_{26}`$) is not connected.

The number 17 comes from the fact that the symmetry group of our locally acyclic orientation has order 24 (Proposition 3.2) versus the $`16\times 24`$ symmetries of the cross-polytope: There are 15 other equivalent ways of doing our construction, and any regular triangulation of $`A_{26}`$ provides a 17th connected component. ∎

###### Proof of Theorem 3.4.

Let us consider the extended complex $`𝒦^{}=𝒦O`$. The orientation in $`𝒦`$ can be extended trivially to a locally acyclic orientation of $`𝒦^{}`$ by letting $`O`$ be a global source. We extend $`T`$ to $`𝒦^{}\times I`$ using this orientation. This is compatible with the central triangulations of the two facets $`(A\{O\})\times \{0\}`$ and $`(A\{O\})\times \{1\}`$. Hence, we have a triangulation, that we denote $`T^{}`$, of

$$(𝒦^{}\times I)(\text{conv}\{A\}\times \{0,1\}).$$

We claim that the complement of this polyhedral complex in $`\text{conv}(A_{26})`$ consists of eight convex regions, each homeomorphic to a 5-dimensional closed half-space and with one of the eight points $`c_{,,,}`$ on its boundary. This claim implies that we can extend $`T^{}`$ to $`A_{26}`$ by coning each point $`c_{,,,}`$ to the part of $`T^{}`$ visible from it.

To prove the claim, observe that the complement of $`𝒦`$ in the boundary of $`\text{conv}(A)`$ consists of eight regions (homeomorphic to 3-balls), each being the union of the two tetrahedra incident to one of the points $`c_{,,,}`$. Hence, the complement of $`𝒦^{}`$ in $`\text{conv}(A)`$ consists of eight regions $`R_{,,,}`$, one for each point $`c_{,,,}`$ defined in the following way for $`c_{+,+,+,0}`$ (with the obvious generalization to the other seven regions). $`R_{+,+,+,0}`$ equals the closed region

$$\text{conv}(O,e_1,e_2,e_3,e_4)\text{conv}(O,e_1,e_2,e_3,e_4).$$

minus the part of its boundary incident to $`O`$. In particular, $`R_{+,+,+,0}`$ is convex and homeomorphic to a 4-dimensional half-space.

By Lemma 3.3 the boundary of $`\text{conv}(A_{26})`$ can be considered a stellar subdivision of the boundary of $`\text{conv}(A\times I)`$, obtained by pulling the centroids of certain faces out to the points $`c_{,,,}`$. In other words, the complement of $`(𝒦\times I)(\text{conv}\{A\}\times \{0,1\})`$ in $`\text{conv}(A_{26})`$ consists of eight regions, each being the above region $`R_{,,,}`$ times the open segment $`(0,1)`$ except it has been slightly pulled out from its interior point $`c_{,,,}`$. This finishes the proof of the claim.

Summing up, we have proved that $`T`$ extends to the triangulation of $`A_{26}`$ obtained by letting $`\stackrel{~}{G}`$ (times the trivial group in the fifth coordinate) act over the twenty-eight 5-simplices listed in Table 3. All the simplices are meant to contain $`c_{+,+,+,0}`$, which we omit.

The first six groups of four simplices in the list come from the six tetrahedra

$$\begin{array}{cccc}\{O,e_4,e_1,e_2\},& \{O,e_4,e_2,e_3\},& & \{O,e_4,e_3,e_1\},\\ \{O,e_1,e_2,e_4\},& \{O,e_2,e_3,e_4\}& \text{ and}& \{O,e_3,e_1,e_4\},\end{array}$$

which appear in $`𝒦^{}`$ with their vertices ordered in this way. The last four simplices come from the central triangulations of $`\text{conv}(A)\times \{0\}`$ and $`\text{conv}(A)\times \{1\}`$.

It is easy to check, even by hand, that each of the simplices listed above is unimodular when regarded in $`𝒜`$. For example, consider the first one:

$$\begin{array}{ccccccccc}& & 𝐚_0& 𝐚_4& 𝐚_1& 𝐚_2& 𝐛_2& 𝐜_{+,+,+,0}& \\ & (\mathrm{}& 0& 0& \mathrm{𝟏}& 0& 0& 1& )\mathrm{}\\ & 0& 0& 0& \mathrm{𝟏}& 1& 1\\ & 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& \mathrm{𝟏}\\ & 0& \mathrm{𝟏}& 0& 0& 0& 0\\ & 0& 0& 0& 0& \mathrm{𝟏}& 1\\ & \mathrm{𝟏}& 1& 1& 1& 1& 2\end{array}$$

Its determinant is clearly $`\pm 1`$ because only the highlighted entries produce a non-zero summand in its expansion. The same occurs with the next 25 simplices in Table 3. The last two simplices in the list are related to the previous-to-last two by the unimodular transformation $`(x_1,x_2,x_3,x_4,x_5,x_6)(x_1`$, $`x_2`$, $`x_3`$, $`x_4`$, $`x_6x_5,x_6)`$. ∎

Observe that only the two points $`a_0`$ and $`b_0`$ in $`A_{26}`$ are not vertices. As we did with $`A_{50}`$ we can pull them out to become vertices, keeping the triangulation we have constructed:

###### Proposition 3.6.

Let $`A_{26}^{}`$ be the point set obtained from $`A_{26}`$ by moving the points $`a_0=(O,0)`$ and $`b_0=(O,1)`$ to $`(O,\alpha )`$ and $`(O,\beta )`$, where $`\alpha (ϵ,0)`$ and $`\beta (1,ϵ)`$ for a sufficiently small positive $`ϵ`$.

Then, $`A_{26}^{}`$ is in convex position and its graph of triangulations has at least 17 connected components.

###### Proof.

The only difference with the proof of Proposition 2.5 is that now the points $`(O,\alpha )`$ and $`(O,\beta )`$ only lie beyond the facets $`A\times \{0\}`$ and $`A\times \{1\}`$ for a sufficiently small perturbation. ∎