Convex lattice polytopes and cones with few lattice points inside, from a birational geometry viewpoint

Abstract

It is pretty well-known that toric Fano varieties of dimension k with terminal singularities correspond to convex lattice polytopes P in R^k of positive finite volume, such that intersection of P and Z^k consists of the point 0 and vertices of P. Likewise, Q-factorial terminal toric singularities essentially correspond to lattice simplexes with no lattice points inside or on the boundary (except the vertices). There have been a lot work, especially in the last 20 years or so on classification of these objects. The main goal of this paper is to bring together these and related results, that are currently scattered in the literature. We also want to emphasize the deep similarity between the problems of classification of toric Fano varieties and classification of Q-factorial toric singularities.