Ehrhart polynomials of lattice-face polytopes

Abstract

There is a simple formula for the Ehrhart polynomial of a cyclic polytope. The purpose of this paper is to show that the same formula holds for a more general class of polytopes, lattice-face polytopes. We develop a way of decomposing any d-dimensional simplex in general position into d! signed sets, each of which corresponds to a permutation in the symmetric group, and reduce the problem of counting lattice points in a polytope in general position to that of counting lattice points in these special signed sets. Applying this decomposition to a lattice-face simplex, we obtain signed sets with special properties that allow us to count the number of lattice points inside them. We are thus able to conclude the desired formula for the Ehrhart polynomials of lattice-face polytopes.