Fat 4-polytopes and fatter 3-spheres
Abstract
We introduce the fatness parameter of a 4-dimensional polytope P, defined as φ(P)=(f1+f2)/(f0+f3). It arises in an important open problem in 4-dimensional combinatorial geometry: Is the fatness of convex 4-polytopes bounded? We describe and analyze a hyperbolic geometry construction that produces 4-polytopes with fatness φ(P)>5.048, as well as the first infinite family of 2-simple, 2-simplicial 4-polytopes. Moreover, using a construction via finite covering spaces of surfaces, we show that fatness is not bounded for the more general class of strongly regular CW decompositions of the 3-sphere.
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