Extremal transitions from nested reflexive polytopes

Abstract

Using an inclusion of one reflexive polytope into another is a well-known strategy for connecting the moduli spaces of two Calabi-Yau families. In this paper we look at the question of when an inclusion of reflexive polytopes determines a torically-defined extremal transition between smooth Calabi-Yau hypersurface families. We show this is always possible for reflexive polytopes in dimensions two and three. However, in dimension four and higher, obstructions can occur. This leads to a smooth projective family of Calabi-Yau threefolds that is birational to one of Batyrev's hypersurface families, but topologically distinct from all such families.