Mixed Ehrhart polynomials

Abstract

For lattice polytopes $P_1,\ldots, P_k \subseteq \mathbb{R}^d$, Bihan (2016) introduced the discrete mixed volume $DMV(P_1,\dots,P_k)$ in analogy to the classical mixed volume.  In this note we study the associated mixed Ehrhart polynomial $ME_{P_1, \dots,P_k}(n) = DMV(nP_1, \dots, nP_k)$.  We provide a characterization of all mixed Ehrhart coefficients in terms of the classical multivariate Ehrhart polynomial. Bihan (2016) showed that the discrete mixed volume is always non-negative. Our investigations yield simpler proofs for certain special cases.

We also introduce and study the associated mixed $h^*$-vector. We show that for large enough dilates $r  P_1, \ldots, rP_k$ the corresponding mixed $h^*$-polynomial has only real roots and as a consequence  the mixed $h^*$-vector becomes non-negative.