Quiver combinatorics for higher-dimensional triangulations

Abstract: We investigate the combinatorics of quivers that arise from triangulations of even-dimensional cyclic polytopes. Work of Oppermann and Thomas pinpoints such quivers as the prototypes for higher-dimensional cluster theory. We first show that a $2d$-dimensional triangulation has no interior $(d + 1)$-simplices if and only if its quiver is a cut quiver of type $A$, in the sense of Iyama and Oppermann. This is a higher-dimensional generalisation of the fact that triangulations of polygons with no interior triangles correspond to orientations of an $A_{n}$ Dynkin diagram. An application of this first result is that the set of triangulations of a $2d$-dimensional cyclic polytope with no interior $(d + 1)$-simplices is connected via bistellar flips -- the higher-dimensional analogue of flipping a diagonal inside a quadrilateral. In dimensions higher than 2, bistellar flips cannot be performed at all locations in a triangulation. Our second result gives a quiver-theoretic criterion for performing bistellar flips on a triangulation of a $2d$-dimensional cyclic polytope. This provides a visual tool for studying mutability of higher-dimensional triangulations and points towards what a theory of higher-dimensional quiver mutation could look like. Indeed, we apply this result to give a rule for mutating cut quivers at vertices which are not necessarily sinks or sources.