Unmixing the mixed volume computation

Abstract

Computing mixed volume of convex polytopes is an important problem in computational algebraic geometry. This paper establishes sufficient conditions under which the mixed volume of several convex polytopes exactly equals the normalized volume of the convex hull of their union. Under these conditions the problem of computing mixed volume of several polytopes can be transformed into a volume computation problem for a single polytope in the same dimension. We demonstrate through problems from real world applications that substantial reduction in computational costs can be achieved via this transformation in situations where the convex hull of the union of the polytopes has less complex geometry than the original polytopes. We also discuss the important implications of this result in the polyhedral homotopy method for solving polynomial systems.