Deformation spaces of Coxeter truncation polytopes

Abstract

A convex polytope $P$ in the real projective space with reflections in the facets of $P$ is a Coxeter polytope if the reflections generate a subgroup $\Gamma$ of the group of projective transformations so that the $\Gamma$-translates of the interior of $P$ are mutually disjoint. It follows from work of Vinberg that if $P$ is a Coxeter polytope, then the interior $\Omega$ of the $\Gamma$-orbit of $P$ is convex and $\Gamma$ acts properly discontinuously on $\Omega$. A Coxeter polytope $P$ is $2$-perfect if $P\setminus \Omega$ consists of only some vertices of $P$. In this paper, we describe the deformation spaces of $2$-perfect Coxeter polytopes $P$ of dimension $d⩾4$ with the same dihedral angles when the underlying polytope of $P$ is a truncation polytope, i.e. a polytope obtained from a simplex by successively truncating vertices. The deformation spaces of Coxeter truncation polytopes of dimension $d=2$ and $d=3$ were studied respectively by Goldman and the third author.

43 pages, 25 figures and tables. To appear in the Journal of the London Mathematical Society