Ehrhart polynomials, Hecke series, and affine buildings

Abstract

Given a lattice polytope $P$ and a prime $p$, we define a function from the set of primitive symplectic $p$-adic lattices to the rationals that extracts the $\ell$th coefficient of the Ehrhart polynomial of $P$ relative to the given lattice. Inspired by work of Gunnells and Rodriguez-Villegas in type $\mathsf{A}$, we show that these functions are eigenfunctions of a suitably defined action of the spherical symplectic Hecke algebra. Although they depend significantly on the polytope $P$, their eigenvalues are independent of $P$ and expressed as polynomials in $p$. We define local zeta functions that enumerate the values of these Hecke eigenfunctions on the vertices of the affine Bruhat--Tits buildings associated with $p$-adic symplectic groups. We compute these zeta functions by enumerating $p$-adic lattices by their elementary divisors and, simultaneously, one Hermite parameter. We report on a general functional equation satisfied by these local zeta functions, confirming a conjecture of Vankov.

12 pages. Accepted by FPSAC 2024