Classification of Triples of Lattice Polytopes with a Given Mixed Volume

We present an algorithm for the classification of triples of lattice polytopes with a given mixed volume m in dimension 3. It is known that the classification can be reduced to the enumeration of so-called irreducible triples, the number of which is finite for fixed m. Following this algorithm, we enumerate all irreducible triples of normalized mixed volume up to 4 that are inclusion-maximal. This produces a classification of generic trivariate sparse polynomial systems with up to 4 solutions in the complex torus, up to monomial changes of variables. By a recent result of Esterov, this leads to a description of all generic trivariate sparse polynomial systems that are solvable by radicals.

Criteria for strict monotonicity of the mixed volume of convex polytopes

Let P1, …, Pn and Q1, …, Qn be convex polytopes in ℝn with Pi ⊆ Qi. It is well-known that the mixed volume is monotone: V(P1, …, Pn) ≤ V(Q1, …, Qn). We give two criteria for when this inequality is strict in terms of essential collections of faces as well as mixed polyhedral subdivisions. This geometric result allows us to characterize sparse polynomial systems with Newton polytopes P1, …, Pn whose number of isolated solutions equals the normalized volume of the convex hull of P1 ∪ … ∪ Pn. In addition, we obtain an analog of Cramer’s rule for sparse polynomial systems.