Volume Polynomials for Some Polyhedra in Spaces of Constant Curvature

Abstract

It is known that for each simplicial polyhedron P in 3-space there exists a monic polynomial Q depending on the combinatorial structure of P and the lengths of its edges only such that the volume of the polyhedron P as well as one of any polyhedron isometric to P and with the same combinatorial structure are roots of the polynomial Q. But this polynomial contains many millions of terms and it cannot be presented in an explicit form. In this work we indicate some special classes of polyhedra for which these polynomials can be found by a sufficiently effective algorithm which also works in spaces of constsnt curvature of any dimension.