The coordinate simplex as a convex body #
The coordinate simplex is the set of nonnegative coordinate vectors with total mass at most one. Unlike the barycentric simplex, it is full dimensional: the missing mass is the coordinate of its vertex at the origin. Its frontier consists of the points with a zero coordinate or total mass one. This identifies the proper barycentric faces with a geometric boundary, and allows Mathlib's convex-body rescaling theorem to identify that boundary with a round sphere. Affine vertex swaps transport the neighbourhood of the origin to the neighbourhoods of the other vertices.
Reference: C. P. Rourke, B. J. Sanderson, Introduction to Piecewise-Linear Topology,
Chapter 2. The sphere identification uses Mathlib's
exists_homeomorph_image_interior_closure_frontier_eq_unitBall by Yury Kudryashov.
The swapped coordinate is the missing mass; all other coordinates are unchanged.
The total mass after a vertex swap is one minus the original swapped coordinate.
Swapping a vertex with the origin twice is the identity on the ambient space.
The vertex swap sends the origin to the chosen coordinate vertex.
The vertex swap sends the chosen coordinate vertex to the origin.
Vertex swapping preserves and reflects membership in the full coordinate simplex.
The vertex homeomorphism applies the affine vertex swap.
The inverse vertex homeomorphism uses the same affine involution.
A vertex swap preserves the geometric boundary of the coordinate simplex.
The origin chart leaves the ambient coordinates unchanged.
A coordinate-vertex chart swaps that vertex with the origin.
The chart vertex swap is an involution.
A chart vertex swap preserves the coordinate simplex.
A chart vertex swap preserves the geometric boundary of the coordinate simplex.
The coordinate simplex is convex.
The coordinate simplex is closed.
Every coordinate of a point of the simplex lies in the unit interval.
The coordinate simplex is compact, including in dimension zero.
A point lies on the frontier exactly when it is in the simplex and at least one of its barycentric coordinates, including the missing mass, vanishes.
The coordinate simplex has nonempty interior.
An ambient homeomorphism identifies the coordinate simplex, its interior and its frontier with the Euclidean unit closed ball, open ball and sphere, respectively.