Constructing a $0/1$ polytope from an abstract simplicial complex

Question

Let us fix $\Delta$ a finite simplicial complex, and label the vertices of $\Delta$ as $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$. For each $F\in \Delta$ let us consider the point in $\mathbb{R}^n$ given by:

$$e_F := \sum_{i\in F} e_i,$$

where $e_i$ denotes the $i$-th canonical vector in $\mathbb{R}^n$. Let us define the polytope $\mathscr{P}(\Delta)$ as the convex hull in $\mathbb{R}^n$ of all these $e_F$ for $F$ ranging in $\Delta$.

Why is this construction interesting? Well, it contains two famous families of polyhedra:

1. Independence matroid polytopes. This is easy to see, since the family of independent sets of a matroid is indeed a simplicial complex.
2. Chain polytopes of posets. This is a little bit harder, but still elementary: the vertices of the chain polytope of a poset $P$ are the antichains of $P$, and this defines a simplicial complex.

I have two questions. Has this family of polytopes already been studied? Are there any other big (or interesting) family of polytopes that fall into this category?

As a side note: there is a nice formula for the volume of chain polytopes, I do not know if this is too naive, but maybe this could help to guess a "good" formula for the volume of independence matroid polytopes.

Answer 1

For a graph $G$, the stable set polytope $\mathcal{P}(G)$ is the polytope which is the convex hull of the indicator functions of stable (i.e., independent) sets of $G$. Since the stable sets are a simplicial complex, this is another well-studied case of the class of polytopes you mention, and it includes the chain polytopes (where we choose $G$ to be the comparability graph of the poset). See, e.g., Chvátal, "On certain polytopes associated with graphs".

Another seemingly similar class of polytopes is the following. We let $\{I_1,\ldots,I_m\}$ be any (multi)set of subsets of $[n]$, and consider the polytope $\mathcal{P}=\sum_{i=1}^{m}\Delta_{I_i}$ which is the Minkowski sum of the standard simplices $\Delta_{I_i} := \mathrm{ConvHull}(e_j\colon j \in I_i)$. See Section 9 of Postinkov's "Permutohedra, associahedra, and beyond". These Minkowski sums of simplices form a large subclass of the generalized permutohedra, but do not include all generalized permutohedra. The matroid (independence) polytopes are generalized permutohedra, but are not positive Minkowski sums of simplices in general (although they are signed Minkowski sums of simplices): see Ardila--Benedetti--Doker, "Matroid polytopes and their volumes".

Answer 2

Another family within your class that has been studied is matching polytopes. Here for a graph $G = (V,E)$ we work in $\mathbb{R}^E$. The matching polytopes in then the convex hull of $e_M$ for matchings of the graph (not necessarily perfect). Since any subset of a matching is a matching it fits in the simplicial complex framework.