Hilbert Polynomials of Calabi Yau Hypersurfaces in Toric Varieties and Lattice Points in Polytope Boundaries

Abstract

We show that the Hilbert polynomial of a Calabi-Yau hypersurface $Z$ in a smooth toric variety $M$ associated to a convex polytope $\Delta$ is given by a lattice point count in the polytope boundary $\partial \Delta ,$ just as the Hilbert polynomial of $M$ is known to be given by a lattice point count in the convex polytope $\Delta .$ Our main tool is a computation of the Euler class in $K$-theory of the normal line bundle to the hypersurface $Z,$ in terms of the Euler classes of the divisors corresponding to the facets of the moment polytope. We observe a remarkable parallel between our expression for the Euler class and the inclusion-exclusion principle in combinatorics. To obtain our result we combine these facts with the known relation between lattice point counts in the facets of $\Delta$ and the Hilbert polynomials of the smooth toric varieties corresponding to these facets.

Sharpened statement of Lemma 4.1 and simplified proof of Lemma 4.2. Corrected minor typographical errors in Section 5