Real-rootedness and ultra log-concavity of rank-two matroid Ehrhart $h^*$-polynomials

Abstract: We prove that the Ehrhart $h<sup>*$-polynomial of a rank-two matroid with exactly three parallel classes is real-rooted whenever its smallest parallel class has size at most three. This bound is sharp: the rank-two matroids with parallel-class sizes $(4,561,600)$ and $(4,a,a+29)$, for all sufficiently large integers $a$, have $h<sup>*$-polynomials that are not real-rooted. These counterexamples disprove Ferroni's real-rootedness conjecture. Their duals are cycle matroids of theta graphs and have the same $h<sup>*$-polynomials. Nevertheless, every matroid of rank two or corank two has a positive $h<sup>*$-coefficient sequence that is ultra log-concave of order equal to the polynomial's degree. In particular, the unimodality conjecture holds in both cases.