Toric configuration spaces: the bipermutahedron and beyond

Abstract

We establish faithful tropicalisation for point configurations on algebraic tori. Building on ideas from enumerative geometry, we introduce tropical scaffolds and use them to construct a system of modular fan structures on the tropical configuration spaces. The corresponding toric varieties provide modular compactifications of the algebraic configuration spaces, with boundary parametrising transverse configurations on tropical expansions. The rubber torus, used to identify equivalent configurations, plays a key role. As an application, we obtain a modular interpretation for the bipermutahedral variety.