NotasEscuela2017 Combinatoria

2da Escuela de Simetrı́as de Estructuras
Combiantorias
24 al 28 de junio de 2017
Unidad Cuernavaca del Instituto de Matemáticas, UNAM
Organizan: Isabel Hubard y Daniel Pellicer

ii
Notas de politopos
abstractos
La escuela de este año estará enfocada al estudio de simetrı́as de poliedros y
politopos. Uno de los cursos utilizará la noción de politopo abstracto, por lo
que creemos importante tengas los conocimientos básicos del tema antes del
inicio de la escuela.
Además, algunos de los ejercicios que aparecen en estas notas nos ayudrán
a decidir qué alumnos serán a los que les otorgaremos beca para la escuela.
Si quedas seleccionado para la escuela, te recomendamos hacer todos los
ejercicios de estas notas antes de que inicie la escuela.
Dado que uno de los cursos de la escuela será en inglés, estas notas y
los ejercicios están en dicho idioma. Puedes presentar tus respuestas a los
ejercicios asignados en español.
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iv
Contents
1 Historical Background 1
2 Abstract Polytopes 7
2.1 Partially ordered sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2 Abstract polytopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.3 Homomorphisms and anti-homomorphisms . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3 Flag graph and equivelar polytopes 23
4 Symmetries of polytopes 27
4.1 Regular polytopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Bibliography 35
v
vi CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Historical Background
The greeks were the first to study the symmetries of polyhedra. Euclid, in
his Elements showed that there are only five regular solids (in Figure 1.1).
In this context, a polyhedron is meant to be a convex polyhedron and it is
regular if all its polygons are regular and equal, and all its vertices have the
same degree.
Figure 1.1: The Platonic Solids.
1
2 CHAPTER 1. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Figure 1.2: A regular convex pentagon and a pentagram. Both have 5 ver-
tices, and the pentagram has 5 “false” vertices, that is, points that are the
intersection of two edges, but that are not vertices.
It was until 1619 that Kepler found the other two regular polyhedra: the
great dodecahedron and the great icosahedron (Figure 1.3). To do so, he
allowed “false” vertices and edges, that is, the intersection of the (convex)
faces of the polyhedra at points that need not be vertices nor edges, just as
the pentagram allows intersection of edges at points that are not vertices of
the polygon. The great dodecahedron has regular pentagons as faces and
at each vertex five of them meet in the form of a pentagram. Similarly, the
great icosahedron has equilateral triangles as faces and five of them around
each vertex, arranged in form of a pentagram. In this way, the vertex-figure
of these two polyhedra are pentagrams (see Figure 1.2).
Figure 1.3: Kepler polyhedra. 1619.
In 1809 Poinsot re-discovered Kepler’s polyhedra, and discovered its du-

als: the small stellated dodecahedron and the great stellated dodecahedron
(in Figure 1.4). The faces of such duals are pentagrams, and are organized
in a “convex” way around each vertex.
3
Figure 1.4: The other two Kepler-Poinsot polyhedra. 1809.
A couple of years later Cauchy showed that these are the only four regular
“star” polyhedra. We note that the convex hull of the great dodecahedron,
great icosahedron and small stellated dodecahedron is the icosahedron, while
the convex hull of the great stellated dodecahedron is the dodecahedron.
In the early 1920’s, Petrie realized that regular polyhedra can be con-
structed organizing the faces going “up and down”. He found two infinite
such polyhedra: the first one (shown in Figure 1.5) has square faces, six
around each vertex, its dual has regular hexagon as faces, four around each
vertex; Coxeter found a third one (having regular hexagonal faces with six
around each vertex) and showed there were no more. These three (infinite)
polyhedra are known as the Petrie-Coxeter polyhedra.
Grünbaum found 47 regular polyhedra in the seventies, including all the
ones described above. Looking at the Petrie-Coxeter polyhedra, one can
observe that the faces are arranged, around each vertex, in a skew manner.
In the Euclidean three space there are 4 different types: convex, star, skew
and helicoidal. While convex and star are always finite, skew polygons can
be either finite or infinite and helicoidal ones are always infinite. (Figure 1.6
shows a convex, a star and a skew 8-gon.) Hence a regular polyhedron can
have, in principle, faces of any of these types and the arrangement of edges
around each vertex can be of any of the finite types.
In the early 80’s, Dress found a new regular polyhedron and showed that
there are 48 regular polyhedra in Euclidean three space, 18 of which are
finite. We refer the interested reader to [4, 5] for details of the classification
of regular polyhedra in Euclidean 3-space.
The Platonic Solids can be thought as tessellations of the sphere. By
using polygons as faces (in a combinatorial sense), one can obtain “polyhe-
Figure 1.5: The {4, 6|4} (infinite) Petrie-Coxeter polyhedron.
Figure 1.6: Three geometrically different regular 8-gons.

5
dra” (or maps) in different surfaces, that need not be realizable in Euclidean
space. More precisely, a map is a 2-cell embedding of a connected graph
(or multigraph) on a surface. The study of regular maps was initiated by
Brahana [1] and developed by Coxeter [2].
Schläfli, at the end of the XIX century, discovered regular convex poly-
topes and honeycombs in higher dimensions. In the classical theory, the
facets and vertex-figures of higher dimensional polytopes are spherical. In
1978, Grünbaum [6] proposed the study of a more general class of polytopes,
in which facets and vertex-figures might not be spherical. Using Coxeter and
Tits ideas about how polytopes can be seen as combinatorial objects and the
inclusion relation between its elements, Danzer and Schulte [3, 7, 8] extended
this further and set out the basic theory of combinatorial objects which are
now known as abstract polytopes.
Chapter 2
Abstract Polytopes
When dealing with abstract polytopes we always try to keep in mind the
geometry behind them. Given a “classical” polytope P, we consider it as
the set containing all its vertices, edges, 2-faces, . . . , facets, together with ≤
relation between them, given by the incidence. Such relation is easily seen to
be a partial order on all the “faces”. Abstract polytopes are defined as posets
with certain properties that resemble classical polytopes. For example, since
a vertex cannot be in a polygon of the polytope without being in an edge,
and two vertices cannot be incident to each other, then the maximal chains of
the order have one element of each kind. A diagram of how we would see the
Figure 2.1: A tetrahedron seen as a poset
tetrahedron in this way is shown in Figure 2.1. When replacing each vertex,
7
8 CHAPTER 2. ABSTRACT POLYTOPES
edge and face of this diagram by a vertex, we obtain the Hasse diagram of
the face-lattice of the tetrahedron.
Before going into the definition of abstract polytopes and start studying
them, we shall briefly review some basic facts about posets.
2.1 Partially ordered sets

A partially ordered set, or a poset, for short, is a set P with a binary relation
≤ satisfying that it is:
• reflexive (F ≤ F for every F ∈ P),
• antisymmetric (if F ≤ G and G ≤ F , then F = G), and
• transitive (if F ≤ G and G ≤ H, then F ≤ H).
We shall call faces to the elements of the poset P. Whenever F ≤ G or

G ≤ F , we say that F and G are incident faces. It is straightforward to see
that any subset of a poset P is itself a poset, with the order of P restricted
to the subset.
A poset P is said to be totally ordered if for any two elements F, G ∈ P,
we have that either F ≤ G or G ≤ F . A chain of a poset is a subset that it
is totally ordered. We shall refer to the maximal chains of a poset as flags.
An open interval of a poset is the set {H ∈ P | F < H < G}, where
F, G ∈ P are such that F < G. A closed interval is a set {H ∈ P | F ≤ H ≤
G}, where F, G ∈ P are such that F ≤ G. We say that a poset is connected
if for any two of its elements, say F, G, there exists a sequence of incident
elements connecting them. That is, there exists
F = F0 , F1 , F2 , . . . , Fk = G,
such that Fi and Fi+1 are incident, for all i = 0, . . . , k − 1.

The Hasse diagram of a poset P is a digraph H(P) such that its vertices
are the faces of P and there is an arc from a face F to a face G if G ≤ F
and there exists no H such that G ≤ H ≤ F and H 6= F, G. Given the
Hasse diagram one can sometimes recover the poset by taking the transitive
closure of the incidences given by the arcs. In this case, we shall say that
the order is discrete. Posets arising from the faces of a classical polytope
are always discrete. Of course, not every order is discrete, for example, the
rational numbers Q, with the usual order, are a poset, but its Hasse diagram
2.2. ABSTRACT POLYTOPES 9
is simply a collection of isolated vertices, and the order cannot be recovered

from the digraph. All the posets that we study here are discrete. When
drawing Hasse diagrams of discrete posets, the convention is that one does
not draw the arrows of the arcs, but the diagram is arranged vertically, in
such a way if two elements are joint by an edge, the greatest element of both
is draw on top of the smaller (as in Figure 2.1).
2.2 Abstract polytopes

An (abstract) polytope of rank n or an n-polytope is a partially ordered set P
endowed with a strictly monotone rank function having range {−1, . . . , n}.
For 0 ≤ j < n, the elements of P of rank j are called j-faces, and often a
j-face is denoted by Fj . The faces of rank 0, 1 and n − 1 are usually called
the vertices, edges and facets of the polytope, respectively. We require that
P has a smallest face F−1 , and a greatest face Fn (called the improper faces
of P), and that each maximal chain (called a flag) of P contains exactly n+2
faces. We denote by F(P) the set of all flags of P.
Figure 2.2: Minimal and maximal faces of a tetrahedron, and a flag of it.
Figure 2.2 shows a way in which we can see the minimal and maximal
face of the tetrahedron and has one flag of it in the partial order. As we
shall see later, the minimal and maximal face of a polytope are required for
technical reasons. Since a flag is a maximal chain of the order, together with
the minimal and maximal faces, it contains a vertex, an edge, a polygon, etc.,
in such a way that the vertex is incident to the edge, the edge is incident to
the polygon and so on. In Figure 2.3 a flag of a tetrahedron is displayed in

two different geometrical ways, as an incident triplet vertex-edge-face.
Figure 2.3: A flag of a tetrahedron, seen in a geometric way
We also require that P be strongly connected, that is, every open interval
of P having elements of at least two different ranks is connected (as a poset).
Finally, we require a homogeneity property (often called the diamond condi-
tion), namely, whenever F ≤ G, with rank(F ) = j − 1 and rank(G) = j + 1,
there are exactly two faces H of rank j such that F ≤ H ≤ G. Figure 2.4
represents the diamond condition on a tetrahedron (for j = 0, 1, 2) in a geo-
metric way. Figure 2.5 shows the same thing in the Hasse diagram.
Figure 2.4: Geometric visualization of the diamond condition of a tetrahe-

dron.
Summarising, an n-polytope is a poset satisfying
1. it has a smallest face and a greatest face,
2. every flag has precisely n + 1 elements,
3. strong connectivity,
4. the diamond condition.
A 0-polytope contains only two (incident) elements, F−1 and F0 ; hence,

up to isomorphism, there is only one 0-polytope, and it can be thought of as
a single point or vertex. A 1-polytope must have a diagram with diamond
Figure 2.5: The diamond condition on the Hasse diagram of the tetrahedron
Figure 2.6: Hasse diagrams of rank 0 and 1 polytopes, respectively.
shape (see Figure 2.6), and we can think of it as an edge with its two end-
vertices.
If P is a 2-polytope, it is easy to see that the number of vertices and edges
of P are exactly the same. Furthermore, every vertex is incident to exactly
two edges and every edge is incident to exactly two vertices (see Figure 2.7).
For this reason, a 2-polytope is called a polygon, or if it is finite and has p
vertices (and hence also p edges), a p-gon. Note that every two geometric
p-gons are combinatorially equivalent. For example, a convex pentagon and
a pentagram (in Figure 1.2) are different representations of the same abstract
polytope, the 5-gon (in Figure 2.7).
Given two faces F and G of a polytope P such that F ≤ G, the section
G/F of P is the closed interval {H|F ≤ H ≤ G}. Often, and motivated by
F2
Edges
Vertices
F-1
Figure 2.7: The Hasse diagram of a 6-gon
the phenomena in convex polytopes, we identify the section G/F−1 with the
face G. If F0 is a vertex, then the section Fn /F0 is called the vertex-figure of
F0 , and more generally Fn /F is the co-face at F .
Proposition 1 Every section G/F of a polytope P (where F, G ∈ P such

that F ≤ G) is an abstract polytope of rank rank(G/F ) = rank(G)−rank(F )−
1.
Proof. Clearly, the set Q = {H | F ≤ H ≤ G} is ordered and it has a

minimal element F and a maximal element G. Let m := rank(G)−rank(F )−
1 and define the function r : Q → {−1, 0, 1, . . . , m} as
r(H) = rank(H) − rank(F ) − 1.
Then, Q is a poset with a rank function to {−1, . . . , m} and minimal and

maximal element.
Given a maximal chain Φ of Q, we consider Φ̄ ∈ F(P) such that Φ ⊆ Φ̄.
By maximality of Φ we have that
Φ = Φ̄ \ {(Φ̄)−1 , (Φ̄)0 , . . . , (Φ̄)rank(F )−1 , (Φ̄)rank(G)+1 , . . . , (Φ̄)n }
implying that Φ has (n + 2) − (rank(F ) − 1 + 2) − (n − rank(G) + 1) =

rank(G) − rank(F ) = m + 2 elements.
Since every open interval of G/F is an open interval of P, then G/F is
strongly connected.
Finally, the diamond condition of Q is also inherited from that of P,

since, given H1 , H2 ∈ Q ⊆ P, r(H1 ) − r(H2 ) = 2 if and only if rank(H1 ) −
rank(H2 ) = 2, implying that there are exactly two elements A, B of P be-
tween H1 and H2 . Since F ≤ H1 , H2 ≤ G, then F < A, B < G, and hence
A, B ∈ Q and the diamond condition is satisfied.
Two flags are said to be adjacent if they differ by exactly one face. Fig-
ure 2.8 has a geometric view of a flag and its 0-adjacent, in two different
ways, and Figure 2.9 shows the Hasse diagram of the tetrahedron empha-
sizing a flag and its 1-adjacent flag. The diamond condition tells us that
A flag Its 0-adjacent flag
Figure 2.8: A flag of a tetrahedron and its 0-adjacent.
Figure 2.9: A flag on the Hasse diagram of the tetrahedron and its 1-adjacent
one.
for i = 0, . . . , n − 1 there is exactly one i-adjacent flag of any given fla Φ.

We define Φi,j := (Φi )j and extend such notation by induction. We shall
denote by (Φ)i the i-face of the flag Φ. For convenience, we often omit the
improper faces when describing a flag, thus, a flag Φ can be denoted as
{(Φ)0 , (Φ)1 , . . . , (Φ)n−1 }. Two i-faces of P, F and F 0 , are said to be adja-

cent if there exists a flag Φ such that (Φ)i = F and (Φi )i = F 0 . The next
proposition follows straightforward from the definitions.
Proposition 2 For i, j ∈ {0, 1, ..., n − 1},
1. (Φi )i = Φ.
2. if |i − j| > 1, Φi,j = Φj,i .
3. (Φ)i = (Φj )i if and only if i 6= j.
Exercise 1 Let P be an abstract polytope and consider V and E, its sets of

vertices and edges, respectively. Then each e ∈ E can be seen as a subset of
V by identifying e with the set {v ∈ V | v ≤ e}. Therefore G := (V, E) is a
hypergraph with vertex set V and hyperedge set E.
a) Show that G is a graph.
b) Can G have loops?
c) What about multiple edges?
The graph described in Exercise 1 is often refer to as the 1-skeleton of P.
Exercise 2 Can a 0-, 1- or 2-polytope be infinite? If not, explain why. If

so, describe such infinite polytopes, geometrically and their Hasse diagram.
Exercise 3 For each of the geometric structures in Figure 2.10 define a

poset whose elements are the empty set, the vertices, edges and polygons of
the geometric structures and each of the structures, and with the order given
by contention. Which of the posets are abstract polytopes of rank 3? (In
the last four structures, boundary with arrows indicates identification of the
corresponding edges.)
Exercise 4 Similarly as in Exercise 1, given an abstract polytope P, for each

i ∈ {1, . . . , n − 1} one can consider Fi , Fi+1 , the sets of i- and i + 1-faces,
respectively, and identify every g ∈ Fi+1 with the subset {f ∈ Fi | f ≤ g} of
Fi . Is H := (Fi , Fi+1 ) a graph?
Figure 2.10: Do they induce polytopes?

Exercise 5 Describe the sections of rank 1 of an abstract polytope P of rank

n.
We now reexamine the third condition in our definition of a polytope. We

shall say that an n-pre-polytope is a partially ordered set with a rank function
that has a unique minimum, unique maximum, all flags have n + 2 flags and
the diamond condition is satisfied. Clearly, sections of pre-polytopes are pre-
polytopes themselves. An n-pre-polytope P, with n > 1, is said to be flag
connected for any two any two flags Φ, Ψ ∈ F(P) can be joined by a sequence
of flags Φ = Φ0 , Φ1 , . . . , Φk = Ψ such that each two successive flags Φi−1 and
Φi are adjacent. A pre-polytope is said to be strongly flag connected if it is
flag connected and in the above sequence we have the extra condition that
Φ ∩ Ψ ⊆ Φi for all i.
Exercise 6 We shall say that an n-pre-polytope P, with minimum F−1 and

maximum Fn is connected if either n = 1 or n > 1 and the open interval
{F ∈ P | F−1 < F < Fn } is connected.
a) Prove that a connected 2-pre-polytope is strong flag connected.
b) Find an example of a connected 3-pre-polytope that is not flag-connected.
c) Find an example of a flag-connected 3-pre-polytope that is not strongly

connected.
d) Prove that a flag-connected pre-polytope is connected.
Exercise 7 Determine which of the structures of Figure 2.10 are connected

3-pre-polytopes. For all the structures that are connected 3-pre-polytopes,
determine if they are:
1. Flag connected.
2. Strong connected.
3. Strong flag connected.
Proposition 3 A pre-polytope P is strongly flag-connected if and only if it

is strongly connected.
Proof. Let us start by assuming that the pre-polytope P is strongly flag-

connected, let G/F be a section of P. Since P is strongly flag-connected, G/F
is flag-connected and by part d) of the previous exercise, G/F is connected.
Hence, P is strongly connected.
For the converse, we shall proceed by induction over n, the rank of the
pre-polytope. By part a) of the previous exercise, strongly connected 2-pre-
polytopes are strongly flag-connected, so the proposition if true for n = 2.
Suppose now that every strongly connected (n − 1)-pre-polytope is strongly
flag-connected, and let P be a strongly connected n-pre-polytope.
Let Φ and Ψ be two flags of P. If there exists F ∈ Φ ∩ Ψ with rank(F ) 6=
−1, n, then we consider the two pre-polytopes Q := (Φ)n /F and Q0 :=
F/(Φ)−1 . By the hypothesis of induction, these two pre-polytopes are strongly
flag-connected. By completing the sequence of adjacent flags of Q that takes
Φ ∩ Q to Ψ ∩ Q to flags of P that coincide with Φ in all ranks smaller than
rank(F ), and then completing the sequence of adjacent flags of Q0 that takes
Φ ∩ Q0 to Ψ ∩ Q0 to flags of P that coincide with Ψ in all ranks greater than
rank(F ), we obtain a sequence of adjacent flags of P, all containing F , taking
Φ to Ψ.
Suppose now that Φ ∩ Ψ = ∅. Let F = (Φ)0 and G = (Ψ)0 . By the
connectivity of P, there is a sequence of incident faces F = F 0 , F 1 , . . . , F k =
G. Let Φ0 := Φ and, for each i = 1, . . . , k, let Φi be such that contains both
F i−1 and F i . Then, each pair of flags Φi and Φi+1 intersect on at least one
proper face of P, and by the above case, there is a sequence of adjacent flags
of P taking Φi to Φi+1 . By concatenating all these sequences of adjacent
flags we obtain a new sequence of adjacent flags taking Φ to Ψ. Therefore P
is strongly flag-connected.
Exercise 8 Show that the 1-skeleton of an abstract polytope is a connected

graph.
Exercise 9 Consider a 3-polytope with v vertices, e edges, and f 2-faces.
a) Prove that v ≤ e.
b) Prove that v = e if and only if f = 2.
c) Prove that e ≤ f v/2.

Exercise 10 Let K be an (n − 1)-polytope. Define a natural construction for

the Pyramid having K as a base, and prove that it produces a polytope.
Exercise 11 Let K be an (n − 1)-polytope. Define a natural construction for

the Prism having K as a base, and prove that it produces a polytope.
Exercise 12 For each of the two preceding constructions, find the number
of flags and number of k-faces of the output.
A Petrie polygon of an n-polytope P is a path among the edges of P

which has exactly k edges in the same k-face, for each k = 2, 3, . . . , n − 1.
In particular, for 3-polytopes, a Petrie polygon has exactly two edges on a
face but any third must belong to a differtent face. (See Figure 2.11 for an
example).
Figure 2.11: Petrie polygons of a 3-polytope on a torus and of a hypercube,

respectively.
For a 3-polytope P, we can define the Petrial of P as a polyhedron that

has the same vertices and edges than P, but its faces are the Petrie polygons
of P. The Petrial of P is denoted by Π(P). Note that Π(Π(P)) ∼ = P.
The Petrial of a polyhedron need not to be a polytope, since the diamond
condition might not be satisfied.
Exercise 13 Consider all the geometric structures that are polytopes of Fig-
ure 2.10. For each of them, find its Petrial and decide if it is a polytope or
not. Do the same with the Platonic Solids.
2.3. HOMOMORPHISMS AND ANTI-HOMOMORPHISMS 19
Figure 2.12: A Petrie polygon of the cube and the Petrial (or Petrie-dual) of
the cube.
2.3 Homomorphisms and anti-homomorphisms

Let P and Q be two abstract polytopes. A homomorphism ψ : P → Q is a
map from P to Q that preserves incidence. That is, if F, G ∈ P are such that
F ≤ G, then F ψ ≤ Gψ. An isomorphism ψ is a bijection such that both ψ
and ψ −1 are homomorphisms. An automorphisms of P is an isomorphism of
P to itself. The group of all automorphisms of P shall be denoted by Γ(P).
An anti-homomorphism ψ : P → Q is a map from P to Q that reverses
the order. That is, if F, G ∈ P are such that F ≤ G, then F ψ ≥ Gψ. An anti-
isomorphism ψ is a bijection such that ψ and ψ −1 are anti-homomorphisms.
If there exists an anti-isomorphism δ : P → Q between two n-polytopes
P and Q, we say that P and Q are duals of each other. Note that every
polytope has a dual polytope, as a dual of a polytope P can be defined to
have the same elements, but the reverse order. For example, the cube and
the octahedron are dual to each other. As the following proposition shows,
up to isomorphisms, the dual of a polytope is unique.
Proposition 4 Up to isomorphism, the dual of a polytope is unique.
Proof. Let P be an n-polytope and let Q and Q0 be duals of P. That is,

there exist anti-isomorphisms ψ : P → Q and δ : P → Q0 . We need to show
that Q and Q0 ante isomorphic.
Since ψ and δ are anti-isomorphisms, they are bijections and ψ −1 and δ −1
are also anti-isomorphisms. Let γ : Q0 → Q be defined as γ = δ −1 ψ. Since
δ −1 : Q0 → P and ψ : P → Q are both bijections, then γ is a well-defined
bijection between Q0 and Q.
Now, let F, G ∈ Q0 be such that F ≤ G. Since δ −1 is an anti-isomorphism,

then Gδ −1 ≤ F δ −1 . And since ψ is also an anti-isomorphism, F δ −1 ψ ≤
Gδ −1 ψ. Hence, F γ ≤ Gγ and therefore γ is an isomorphism between Q0 and
Q.
It is not difficult to see that the dual of a cube is an octahedron and the
dual of a dodecahedron is an icosahedron (Figure 2.13 implicitly defines the
anti-isomorphims between a dodecahedron and an icosahedron).
Figure 2.13: The dual of a dodecahedron is an icosahedron.
The convention is to denote the dual of P by P ∗ . If the dual of P is iso-

morphic to P itself, we say that P is self-dual. For example, the tetrahedron
is self-dual.
Exercise 14 Show that if ψ : P → Q is an isomorphism, then rank(F ) =

rank(F ψ) for all F ∈ P. Is this true if ψ is any homomorphism?
Exercise 15 Show that a convex pentagon and a pentagram (see Figure 1.2)
are isomorphic.
Exercise 16 Let K be an (n − 1)-polytope. Show that, up to isomorphism,

there is a unique n-polytope P with two facets, both isomorphic to K.
Exercise 17 Show that one of the Kepler-Poinsot polyhedra is isomorphic

to the dodecahedron, another one is isomorphic to the icosahedron and the
other two are isomorphic to each other.
2.3. HOMOMORPHISMS AND ANTI-HOMOMORPHISMS 21
Exercise 18 If we take a cube and identify opposite vertices, edges and faces,
we obtain a hemi-cube. The hemi-cube can be represented in the projective
plane as in Figure 2.14.
Figure 2.14: A hemi-cube.
a) Give a surjective homomorphism from a cube to a hemi-cube that pre-

serves the ranks of the faces.
b) Give a homomorphism from a cube to a square.
c) Can you give a surjective homomorphism from a cube to a triangle?

And to a pentagon?
Exercise 19 Let ψ : P → Q be an anti-isomorphism. Give a relation be-

tween rank(F ) and rank(F ψ).
Exercise 20 Let P be an n-gon. Give an anti-isomorphism from P to itself.
Exercise 21 a) Find a 3-polytope P such that there exists an anti-isomorphism

from a cube to P.
b) Find a 3-polytope P such that there exists a surjective anti-homomorphism,

but not an anti-isomorphism from a cube to P.
c) Can you give a surjective anti-homomorphism from a cube to a triangle?

and to a square?
Exercise 22 Show that for any polytope P, (P ∗ )∗ ∼

= P.
Exercise 23 If given a polytope P, P yr(P) and P ri(P) denote the pyramid

and the prism over P, respectively, show that
a) P yr(P) ∼
= P yr(Q) if and only if P ∼
= Q.
b) (P ri(P)) ∼
= P ri(Q) if and only if P ∼
= Q.
c) (P yr(P))∗ ∼
= P yr(P) if and only if P ∼
= P ∗.
Chapter 3
Flag graph and equivelar
polytopes
Let P be an n-polytope. We define the flag graph GP of P as follows. The
vertices of GP are the flags of P, and we put an edge between two of them
whenever the corresponding flags are adjacent. Hence GP is n-valent (i.e.
every vertex of GP has exactly n incident edges; to reduce confusion we avoid
the alternative terminology ‘n-regular’). Furthermore, we can colour the
edges of GP with n different colours as determined by the adjacencies of the
flags of P. That is, an edge of GP has colour i, if the corresponding flags of
P are i-adjacent. In this way GP is an n-edge coloured graph. Hence, every
vertex of has exactly one edge of each colour (see Figure 3.1). Note that the
edges of a given colour form a perfect matching of the graph.
Figure 3.1: The flag graph of a cube. Green, blue and yellow segments
represent colours 0, 1 and 2, respectively.
23
24 CHAPTER 3. FLAG GRAPH AND EQUIVELAR POLYTOPES
Let i ∈ {0, . . . , n − 1} and consider GPî as the graph GP taken away all the
edges of colour i. Let Φ ∈ F(P), and consider Φ as a vertex of GP . Then,
the connected component of GPî that contains Φ, GPî (Φ), corresponds of all
the flags of P that can be written as Φi0 ,i1 ,...,ik for some integer k such that
ij ∈ {0, . . . , n − 1} \ {i}. In other words, the flags in GPî (Φ) are precisely all
the flags of P that have (Φ)i as its i-face. Hence, we can think of GPî (Φ) as
the i-face of P contained in Φ.
Figure 3.2: A cuboctahedron and (part of) its flag graph.
Consider now the (i, j) 2-factor of GP , that is, the subgraph of GP that
has all the vertices of GP but only the edges of colours i and j, and denote
it by GPi,j . If |i − j| > 1, the fact that for any flag Φ, Φi,j = Φj,i implies
that the connected components of GPi,j are always 4-cycles. However, if |i −
j| = 1, then the connected components of GPi,j are either (even) cycles with
alternating colours or infinite alternating paths of the graph. Moreover,
fixing i and j, the connected components of GPi,j need not be isomorphic,
for example a cuboctahedron (see Figure 3.2) has two types of connected
components of colours 0 and 1 (hexagons and octagons). Let Φ ∈ F(P)
and consider the flags that are in the same connected component of GPi,i+1 as
Φ. Each such flag can be written as Φi0 ,i1 ,...,ik for some integer k such that
ij ∈ {i, i + 1}. That is, the vertices of the connected component of Φ in GPi,i+1
are Φ, Φi , Φi,i+1 , Φi,i+1,i , . . . together with Φi+1 , Φi+1,i , . . . Note that all these
flags contain the faces (Φ)j , whenever j 6= i, i + 1. Hence, the connected
component of Φ in GPi,i+1 can be thought of as the section (Φ)i+2 /(Φ)i−1 of
P.
An n-polytope P, n ≥ 2, is said to be equivelar if, for each j = 1, . . . , n−1,
25
there exists an integer pj , such that, for each flag Φ ∈ F(P), the section
(Φ)j+1 /(Φ)j−2 is a pj -gon. In other words, P is equivelar if for each j ∈
{0, . . . , n − 2} the connected components of the (j, j + 1) 2-factor of GP are
all isomorphic (to a 2pj bi-coloured cycle). In this case, we say that P has
Schläfli type (or sometimes only type) {p1 , p2 , . . . pn−1 }.
All 2-polytopes are equivelar; furthermore, a p-gon has Schläfli type {p}.
We note that an infinite 2-polytope or aperiogon has Schläfli type {∞}.
Alternatively, the Schläfli type of an equivelar polytope can be defined
as follows. For rank 2, we say that the Schläfli type of a p-gon is {p}. For
higher rank, an n-polytope P is said to have Schläfli type {p1 , p2 , . . . , pn−1 }
if all its facets have Schläfli type {p1 , p2 , . . . , pn−2 } and all its vertex-figures
have Schläfli type {p2 , p3 , . . . , pn−1 }.
A polyhedron is equivelar of Schläfli type {p, q} if and only if all its facets
are p-gons and all its vertex-figures are q-gons. Hence, all the Platonic Solids
are equivelar: the tetrahedron has Schläfli type {3, 3}, the cube has type
{4, 3}, the octahedron has type {3, 4}, the dodecahedron has type {5, 3} and
the icosahedron has type {3, 5}.
An example of a 4-polytope is a hypercube or 4-cube. It has cubes as
facets, three of them around each edge (see Figure 3.3) implying that its
vertex-figures are tetrahedra. Hence, its Schläfli type is {4, 3, 3}.
Figure 3.3: A hypercube

26 CHAPTER 3. FLAG GRAPH AND EQUIVELAR POLYTOPES
Exercise 24 Let P be a 3-polytope.
a) Show that the flag graph of P is the 1-skeleton of a 3-polytope Q whose

2-faces correspond to the vertices, edges and faces of P.
b) Show that if P is finite, the number of flags of Q is six times the number
of flags of P.
Exercise 25 a) Show that every two 2-polytopes with the same Schläfli
type are isomorphic abstract polytopes.
b) Find an abstract polytope that is not isomorphic to the cube, but has
the same Schläfli type.
c) Show that for each n > 2, there exist two n-polytopes with the same
Schläfli type that are not isomorphic.
Exercise 26 Let P be an equivelar polytope of Schläfli type {p1 , p2 , . . . , pn−1 }.

Show that P ∗ is an equivelar polytope and determine its Schläfli type.
Exercise 27 Show that an equivelar polytope of type {p1 , . . . , pn−1 } has at

least 2p1 · · · pn−1 flags.
Equivelar polytopes with exactly 2p1 · · · pn−1 flags are called tight.
Exercise 28 Let P be an equivelar polytope of type {p1 , . . . , pn−1 }. Show

that:
a) P has at least p1 vertices and pn−1 facets;
b) if each pi is odd and n ≥ 3, then P is not tight;
Exercise 29 Let P be a tight polytope of type {p1 , . . . , pn−1 }. Show that:
a) P has exactly p1 vertices and pn−1 facets;
b) every vertex-figure and every facet are tight;
c) every section (of rank ≥ 2) is tight;
d) no two consecutive pi , pi+1 are odd.

Chapter 4
Symmetries of polytopes
Let P be an n-polytope. Recall that an automorphism of P is an isomorphism
γ : P → P form P to itself. It is straightforward to see that the set of all
automorphisms of a polytope P is a group, the automorphism group Γ(P)
of P.
Figure 4.1: Two symmetries of the cube, seen geometrically.
One can think of the automorphisms of a polytope P acting on different

sets of P. For example, one can consider the action of the automorphism
group on the flags, vertices, edges, etc, of P. In fact, one can easily see that
27
28 CHAPTER 4. SYMMETRIES OF POLYTOPES
any automorphism induces a bijection of the flags of P. In fact, if Φ ∈ F

and γ ∈ Γ(P), then Φγ := (Φ0 γ, Φ1 γ, . . . , Φn−1 γ). Hence if Φ, Ψ are such
that Φγ = Ψγ, then Φi γ = Ψi γ, for all i ∈ {0, . . . , n − 1}, which immediately
implies that, since γ is a bijection, Φi = Ψi for all i and therefore Φ = Ψ.
Lemma 5 Let P be an n-polytope, let γ ∈ Γ(P) and let Φ be a flag of P.

Then,
(Φi )γ = (Φγ)i and (Φ)i γ = (Φγ)i ,
for every i = 0, 1, . . . , n − 1.
Proof. By the definition of the action of γ on Φ we have that (Φ)i γ = (Φγ)i

for every i = 0, 1, . . . , n − 1.
Now recall that (Φi )j = (Φ)j if and only if i 6= j. Hence, since γ is
a bijection, then (Φγ)j = (Φ)j γ = (Φi )j γ = (Φi γ)j if and only if i 6= j. In
other words, Φγ and Φi γ have all the same faces, except that of rank i, which
implies that they are i-adjacent. That is, (Φγ)i = (Φi )γ.
Corollary 6 Let P be an n-polytope, then Γ(P) acts freely on F(P), that

is, every automorphism of P that fixes one flag is the identity.
Proof. If γ ∈ Γ(P) is such that Φγ = Φ, then (Φi )γ = (Φγ)i = Φi . That

is, if a flag is fixed by γ, then all its adjacent flags are also fixed. Since P
is flag connected, then every flag is fixed by γ and the action of Γ(P) is free
(or semi-regular) on F(P).
Lemma 5 implies that any automorphism of a polytopes P induces a

bijection of the flags that preserves the i-adjacencies. In fact, the converse is
also true.
Proposition 7 Let P be an n-polytope with flag set F(P). If γ : F(P) →

F(P) is a bijection such that for every i ∈ {0, 1, . . . , n − 1} and every flag Φ,
(Φi )γ = (Φγ)i ,
then γ induces an automorphism of P
Proof. We start by showing that γ −1 is also a bijection of F(P) such that

if Ψ ∈ F(P), then (Ψi )γ −1 = (Ψγ −1 )i , for every i = 0, . . . , n − 1. In fact,
29
since γ is a bijection, then there exists Φ ∈ F(P) such that Φγ = Ψ. Then,

(Ψi )γ −1 = (Φγ)i γ −1 = Φi γγ −1 = Φi = (Ψγ −1 )i .
Recall that given an i-face F ∈ P, there exists Φ ∈ F(P) such that
(Φ)i = F . Let γ̂ : P → P be such that (Φ)i 7→ (Φγ)i . Next, we show that γ̂
is a well-defined bijection of P. It will then be straightforward to see that it
preserves incidence and hence it is an automorphism.
To see that γ̂ is well-defined, first observe that (Φ)i = (Φj )i whenever
j 6= i, and hence
(Φ)i γ̂ = (Φγ)i = (Φ)i γ = (Φj )i γ = (Φj γ)i = (Φj )i γ̂.
Now suppose that (Φ)i = (Ψ)i . As P is strongly flag connected, there is a

sequence of adjacent flags Φ = Φ0 , Φ1 , . . . , Φm = Ψ with Φ ∪ Ψ ⊂ Φk for all
j = 0, . . . , m. Thus, (Φk )i is the same for all j = 0, . . . , m, and as Φk and
Φk+1 are adjacent, then (by the previous observation) (Φk )i γ̂ = (Φk+1 )i γ̂,
and therefore (Φ)i γ̂ = (Ψ)i γ̂.
Since γ −1 satisfies that (Ψi )γ −1 = (Ψγ −1 )i for all flags and adjacencies,
we can similarly show that γ̂ is one-to-one. Since γ −1 is a bijection, then
it is straightforward to see that γ̂ is onto, and by definition if preserves the
incidence, implying it is an automorphism of P.
The lemma above implies that it is equivalent to define an automorphism

as a bijection of the faces that preserves incidence, or as a bijection of the
flags that preserves adjacencies.
Denote by Orb(P) the set of all flag orbits of P under the action of Γ(P).
Since Γ(P) acts freely on F(P), for each O ∈ Orb(P) and each Φ ∈ O, the
mapping
φ : Γ(P) → O
γ 7→ Φγ
is a bijection. Therefore there exists a bijection between every two flag orbits
|F (P)|
of P. In particular, if P is finite, |Γ(P)| = |O| = |Orb(P)| . Hence, |Γ(P)| ≤
|F(P)|.
If the action of Γ(P) has k orbits on the flags, we shall say that P is a
k-orbit polytope. If P is a 1-orbit polytope, then the action of Γ(P) on F(P)
is transitive and therefore regular. In such case we say that P is a regular
polytope.
Lemma 8 Let P be an n-polytope, and let us denote by Orb(P) the set of all
flag orbits of P under the action of Γ(P). Let O1 , O2 ∈ Orb(P) and Φ ∈ O1 .
If for some i ∈ {0, . . . n − 1}, Φi ∈ O2 , then for any Ψ ∈ O1 , Ψi ∈ O2 .
Proof. Let Φ ∈ O1 be such that for some i ∈ {0, . . . , n − 1}, Φi ∈ O2 ,

and let Ψ be any flag in O1 . Since Φ and Ψ are both in the same orbit,
then there exists γ ∈ Γ(P) such that Φγ = Φ. By Lemma 5 we have that
Ψi = (Φγ)i = (Φi )γ, which implies that Ψi and Φi are in the same orbit.
Hence, the lemma follows.
An immediate consequence of Lemma 8 is the following result.
Corollary 9 Let P be a two-orbit polytope of rank n and let Φ ∈ F(P). If

Φi is in the same orbit as Φ for some i ∈ {0, . . . n − 1}, then Ψ and Ψi are
in the same orbit, for any flag Ψ of P.
Exercise 30 Find all the automorphisms of a p-gon, with p ∈ {2, 3, . . . }.
Exercise 31 Let P and Q be two dual n-polytopes. Show that Γ(P) ∼

= Γ(Q).
Exercise 32 Show that all 0-, 1- and 2-polytopes are regular.
Exercise 33 Show that the five platonic solids are regular polytopes.
Exercise 34 If P is a k-orbit polytope and Q is its dual, how many orbits

on flags does Γ(Q) have?
Exercise 35 Let P be a 3-polytope and let Q be such that its 2-faces corre-
spond to the vertices, edges and faces of P, and its 1-skeleton is isomorphic
to the flag-graph of Q (that is, Q is the polytope from exercise 24).
a) Prove or give a counterexample: If P is a finite k-orbit polytope, then

Q is a 6k-orbit polytope.
b) Prove or give a counterexample: If P is an infinite k-orbit polytope,

then Q is a 6k-orbit polytope.
We say that an n-polytope P is i-face transitive, for some i ∈ {0, . . . , n−1}

if Γ(P) acts transitively on the faces of rank i. We say that P is fully-
transitive if it is i-face transitive for all i ∈ {0, . . . , n − 1}.
31
Exercise 36 Let O1 , O2 ∈ Orb(P), where P is an n-polytope, and let Φ ∈

O1 . If for every i ∈ {0, . . . , n − 1}, Φi ∈ O2 , then P is either regular or a
two-orbit polytope. Show that in any case, P is fully-transitive.
Exercise 37 Let P be a 3-polytope such that its Petrial Π(P) is also a 3-

polytope.
a) What can you say about the automorphism group of Π(P) in terms of
the automorphism group of P?
b) If P is a k-orbit polytope, how many orbits on flags would Π(P) have?
c) Show that P is 0-face transitive if and only if Π(P) is 0-face transitive.

Show that P is 1-face transitive if and only if Π(P) is 1-face transitive.
Is the same statement true for 2-face transitive? (Give a proof or a
counterexample.)
Exercise 38 Let Pyr(P) denote the pyramid over the polytope P.
a) Determine Γ(Pyr(P)) in terms of Γ(P).
b) Give necessary and sufficient conditions over P for Pyr(P) to be a

regular polytope.
c) If P is a k-orbit polytope, what can you say about the number of flag-
orbits of Pyr(P)?
Exercise 39 Let Pri(P) denote the prism over the polytope P.
a) Determine Γ(Pri(P)) in terms of Γ(P).
b) Give necessary and sufficient conditions over P for Pri(P) to be a reg-

ular polytope.
c) If P is a k-orbit polytope, what can you say about the number of flag-
orbits of Pri(P)?
4.1 Regular polytopes

In this section we shall see some basic properties of regular polytopes. Through-
out, unless otherwise statement, P will denote a regular polytope of rank n.
We start by noticing that by Exercise 31, if a polytope is regular, then
its dual is also regular. Moreover, whenever n = 3 and the Petrial of P is
also a 3-polytope, by Exercise 37, Π(P) is also a regular polytope.
Proposition 10 Let P be a regular polytope, let Φ, Ψ ∈ F(P) and i, j ∈

{0, . . . , n − 1} with i < j. Then, the sections (Φ)j /(Φ)i and (Ψ)j /(Ψ)i are
isomorphic and regular.
Proof. Since P is regular, Γ(P) is transitive on F(P). Hence, there exists

γ ∈ Γ(P) such that Φγ = Ψ. This implies that (Φ)j /(Φ)i γ = (Ψ)j /(Ψ)i ,
so the two sections are isomorphic.
Note that, in general, if Q is a section of P, then the stabiliser of Q in
Γ(P) is a subgroup of Γ(Q). In particular this means that the stabiliser ΓΦ i,j
of (Φ)j /(Φ)i in Γ(P) is a subgroup of Γ((Φ)j /(Φ)i ), which implies that if the
action of ΓΦi,j on the flags of (Φ)j /(Φ)i is transitive, then the section is, itself,
a regular polytope.
For each flag Λ of Q := (Φ)j /(Φ)i , then we can extend Λ to the flag
Λ̄ = {(Φ)0 , . . . , (Φ)i−1 , (Φ)j+1 , . . . (Φ)n−1 } ∪ Λ of P. Hence, given Λ and ∆
two flags of Q, since P is regular, then there exists γ ∈ Γ(P) such that
¯ = Λ̄. Since the i-face of both ∆ and Λ is (Φ)i , and j-face of both ∆ and
∆γ
Λ is (Φ)j , then γ ∈ Γ(P) fixes the section (Φ)j /(Φ)i , implying that γ ∈ ΓΦ i,j
sends ∆ to Λ. Hence, ΓΦ i,j is transitive on the flags of Q, and Q is regular,
settling the proposition.
Since the above lemma implies that the rank 2 sections on a given “level”
are isomorphic, the following corollary is a consequence of the lemma.
Corollary 11 Every regular polytope is equivelar.
Exercise 40 Consider the following definition: Every 2-polytope is regular;

a n-polytope (n ≥ 3) is regular if its facets and vertex figures are regular and
isomorphic. Is this definition equivalent to our concept of regularity?
Let P be an regular n-polytope of Schläfli type {p1 , p2 , . . . pn−1 } and let

Φ be a base flag of P. Since Γ(P) is transitive on the flags, for every i =
4.1. REGULAR POLYTOPES 33
0, 1, . . . , n − 1, there exists ρi ∈ Γ(P) such that Φρi = Φi . Note that since

the action of Γ(P) on F(P) is free, then (given a flag Φ) the ρ’s are unique.
Then,
Φρ2i = (Φi )ρi = (Φρi )i = Φi,i = Φ;
also, if |i − j| > 1, then
Φρi ρj = (Φi )ρj = (Φρj )i = Φj,i = Φi,j = Φρj ρi .
Since Γ(P) acts freely on F(P), this implies that
ρ2i = (ρi ρj )2 = , if |i − j| > 1. (4.1)
Moreover, since the polytope is flag connected, then the set {ρ0 , . . . ρn−1 }
generate the group Γ(P). To see this, we take γ ∈ Γ(P) to be any automor-
phism of P, and let Ψ := Φγ. Hence, there exist i0 , i1 , . . . ik ∈ {0, . . . n − 1}
such that
Φ = Φi0 ,i1 ,...ik .
By Proposition 7, Φi0 ,i1 ,...ik = (Φi0 )i1 ,...ik = (Φρi0 )i1 ,...ik = (Φi1 ,...ik )ρi0 , and by
doing this k more times, we get that Φi0 ,i1 ,...ik = Φρik ρik−1 . . . ρi0 . That is,
Φγ = Φρik ρik−1 . . . ρi0 . Since the action of Γ(P) is free on F(po), this implies
that γ = ρik ρik−1 . . . ρi0 and hence Γ(P) is generated by ρ0 , . . . ρn−1 .
Exercise 41 Suppose that P is an n-polytope such that for some base flag Φ
there exist automorphisms ρi such that Φρi = Φi for every i ∈ {0, . . . , n − 1}.
Show that P is a regular polytope.
We shall refer to ρ0 , ρ1 , . . . , ρn−1 as the distinguished generators of P with

respect to Φ.
Exercise 42 Let P be the cube in Figure 4.2, and let Φ be the base flag
shown in the figure.
a) Let δ : P → P ∗ be an anti-isomorphism from P to its dual. Describe

the distinguished generators of Γ(P ∗ ) with respect to Φδ.
b) Consider the Petrial Π(P) of P, and let Ψ be a flag having the same
vertex and edge than Φ. Describe the distinguished generators of Π(P)
with respect to Ψ.
Figure 4.2: A cube with three reflections as its distinguished generators with
respect to some base flag.
We now turn our attention to the chains of P that are contained in the
base flag Φ. For any J ⊆ {0, . . . , n − 1}, we set ΦK := {(Φ)j | j ∈ K}, and
note that if i ∈
/ K, then ρi fixes ΦK . Hence, hρi | i ∈
/ Ki is a group contained
in the stabilizer (under the action of Γ(P)) of ΦJ¯. We denote such stabilizer
by ΓK . Further, we have the following lemma.
Lemma 12 Let P be a regular polytope and let ρ0 , . . . , ρn−1 be the dis-
tinguished generators of Γ(P) with respect to some base flag Φ. For any
K ⊆ {0, . . . , n − 1} we have that
ΓK = hρi | i ∈
/ Ki.
Proof. We only need to show that given γ ∈ ΓK , γ can be written in terms of

the elements of {ρi | i ∈ / K}. So let γ ∈ ΓK , and set Ψ := Φγ. Note that as γ
fixes all the faces (Φ)k , with k ∈ K, we have that {rank(F ) | F ∈ Φ∩Φ} ⊆ K.
¯ ...n −
Since P is strongly flag connected, there exist i0 , i1 , . . . im ∈ J{0,
1} \ K such that
Φ = Φi0 ,i1 ,...im .
By Proposition 7, Φi0 ,i1 ,...im = (Φi0 )i1 ,...im = (Φρi0 )i1 ,...im = (Φi1 ,...im )ρi0 , and
by doing this m more times, we get that Φi0 ,i1 ,...im = Φρim ρim−1 . . . ρi0 . That
is, Φγ = Φρim ρim−1 . . . ρi0 . Since the action of Γ(P) is free on F(po), this
implies that γ = ρim ρim−1 . . . ρi0 and hence ΓJ ≤ hρi | i ∈ / Ki, which settles
the lemma.
This lemma implies that for each i, 0 < i < n, we have that
Γ((Φ)i+1 /(Φ)i−2 ) ∼
= hρi−1 , ρi i.
4.1. REGULAR POLYTOPES 35
Thus, if {p1 , p2 , . . . , pn−1 } is the Schläfli type of P, we have
(ρi−1 ρi )pi = ε.
Now, given two subsets K, L ∈ {0, . . . , n − 1}, we consider the chains ΦK

and ΦL . We want to find out which elements of Γ(P) fix both chains. On
one hand, if we want both chains to be fixed, we want to fix the chain ΦK∪L ,
and by Lemma 12, the stabilizer of such chain is ΓK∪L = hρi | i ∈ / K ∪ Li. On
the other hand, if γ fixes ΦK , then γ ∈ ΓK , which implies that if γ fixes ΦK
and ΦL , then γ ∈ ΓK ∩ ΓL . It is also clear that all the elements of ΓK ∩ ΓL
fix both ΦK and ΦL . We therefore have that
ΓK∪L = ΓK ∩ ΓL .
By setting K = I¯ := {0, . . . , n − 1} \ I and L = J¯ := {0, . . . , n − 1} \ J,

the above equality can be now written as
ΓI¯ ∩ ΓJ¯ = ΓI∪

¯ J¯ = ΓI∩J .
Therefore, the distinguished generators of P satisfy the intersection condition
hρi | i ∈ Ii ∩ hρj | j ∈ Ji = hρi | i ∈ I ∩ Ji, for every I, J ⊆ {0, . . . n − 1}.

(4.2)
A group that is a quotient of a sting Coxeter group and whose generators

satisfy the intersection condition (4.2) is called a string C-group. It is now
straightforward to see the following theorem.
Theorem 13 The automorphism group of a regular polytope is a string C-

group.
We shall not discuss the details here, but the converse of the above the-
orem is also true. That is, if Γ is a string C-group, then there is a regular
polytope whose automorphism group is Γ. In fact, there is a bijection between
regular polytopes and string C-groups given by an ordered set of generators.
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[8] E. Schulte, Reguläre Inzidenzkomplexe, III, Geom. Dedicata 14 (1983),

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37

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2da Escuela de Simetrı́as de Estructuras

Unidad Cuernavaca del Instituto de Matemáticas, UNAM

Organizan: Isabel Hubard y Daniel Pellicer

3 Flag graph and equivelar polytopes 23

Figure 1.1: The Platonic Solids.

Figure 1.3: Kepler polyhedra. 1619.

In 1809 Poinsot re-discovered Kepler’s polyhedra, and discovered its du-

Figure 1.4: The other two Kepler-Poinsot polyhedra. 1809.

Figure 1.5: The {4, 6|4} (infinite) Petrie-Coxeter polyhedron.

Figure 1.6: Three geometrically different regular 8-gons.

Figure 2.1: A tetrahedron seen as a poset

2.1 Partially ordered sets

• reflexive (F ≤ F for every F ∈ P),

• antisymmetric (if F ≤ G and G ≤ F , then F = G), and

• transitive (if F ≤ G and G ≤ H, then F ≤ H).

We shall call faces to the elements of the poset P. Whenever F ≤ G or

such that Fi and Fi+1 are incident, for all i = 0, . . . , k − 1.

is simply a collection of isolated vertices, and the order cannot be recovered

2.2 Abstract polytopes

the polygon and so on. In Figure 2.3 a flag of a tetrahedron is displayed in

Figure 2.3: A flag of a tetrahedron, seen in a geometric way

Figure 2.4: Geometric visualization of the diamond condition of a tetrahe-

Summarising, an n-polytope is a poset satisfying

1. it has a smallest face and a greatest face,

2. every flag has precisely n + 1 elements,

4. the diamond condition.

A 0-polytope contains only two (incident) elements, F−1 and F0 ; hence,

Figure 2.6: Hasse diagrams of rank 0 and 1 polytopes, respectively.

Figure 2.7: The Hasse diagram of a 6-gon

Proposition 1 Every section G/F of a polytope P (where F, G ∈ P such

Proof. Clearly, the set Q = {H | F ≤ H ≤ G} is ordered and it has a

r(H) = rank(H) − rank(F ) − 1.

Then, Q is a poset with a rank function to {−1, . . . , m} and minimal and

Φ = Φ̄ \ {(Φ̄)−1 , (Φ̄)0 , . . . , (Φ̄)rank(F )−1 , (Φ̄)rank(G)+1 , . . . , (Φ̄)n }

implying that Φ has (n + 2) − (rank(F ) − 1 + 2) − (n − rank(G) + 1) =

Finally, the diamond condition of Q is also inherited from that of P,

A flag Its 0-adjacent flag

Figure 2.8: A flag of a tetrahedron and its 0-adjacent.

for i = 0, . . . , n − 1 there is exactly one i-adjacent flag of any given fla Φ.

{(Φ)0 , (Φ)1 , . . . , (Φ)n−1 }. Two i-faces of P, F and F 0 , are said to be adja-

Proposition 2 For i, j ∈ {0, 1, ..., n − 1},

2. if |i − j| > 1, Φi,j = Φj,i .

3. (Φ)i = (Φj )i if and only if i 6= j.

Exercise 1 Let P be an abstract polytope and consider V and E, its sets of

a) Show that G is a graph.

b) Can G have loops?

c) What about multiple edges?

The graph described in Exercise 1 is often refer to as the 1-skeleton of P.

Exercise 2 Can a 0-, 1- or 2-polytope be infinite? If not, explain why. If

Exercise 3 For each of the geometric structures in Figure 2.10 define a

Exercise 4 Similarly as in Exercise 1, given an abstract polytope P, for each

Figure 2.10: Do they induce polytopes?

Exercise 5 Describe the sections of rank 1 of an abstract polytope P of rank

We now reexamine the third condition in our definition of a polytope. We

Exercise 6 We shall say that an n-pre-polytope P, with minimum F−1 and

a) Prove that a connected 2-pre-polytope is strong flag connected.

b) Find an example of a connected 3-pre-polytope that is not flag-connected.

c) Find an example of a flag-connected 3-pre-polytope that is not strongly

d) Prove that a flag-connected pre-polytope is connected.

Exercise 7 Determine which of the structures of Figure 2.10 are connected

3. Strong flag connected.

Proposition 3 A pre-polytope P is strongly flag-connected if and only if it

Proof. Let us start by assuming that the pre-polytope P is strongly flag-

Exercise 8 Show that the 1-skeleton of an abstract polytope is a connected