Lower bounds for simplicial covers and triangulations of cubes

Abstract

We show that the size of a minimal simplicial cover of a polytope $P$ is a lower bound for the size of a minimal triangulation of $P$, including ones with extra vertices. We then use this fact to study minimal triangulations of cubes, and we improve lower bounds for covers and triangulations in dimensions 4 through at least 12 (and possibly more dimensions as well). Important ingredients are an analysis of the number of exterior faces that a simplex in the cube can have of a specified dimension and volume, and a characterization of corner simplices in terms of their exterior faces.