UC Berkeley

We study Newton polytopes of cluster variables in type A cluster algebras, whose cluster and coefficient variables are indexed by the diagonals and boundary segments of a polygon. Our main results include an explicit description of the affine hull and facets of the Newton polytope of the Laurent expansion of any cluster variable, with respect to any cluster. In particular, we show that every Laurent monomial in a Laurent expansion of a type A cluster variable corresponds to a vertex of the Newton polytope. We also describe the face lattice of each Newton polytope via an isomorphism with the lattice of elementary subgraphs of the associated snake graph. Other results include a geometric interpretation of the proper Laurent property in type A based on Newton polytopes, and a proof that the Newton polytope of a type A cluster variable has no relative interior lattice points. We also consider extensions of these ideas, results, and methods to other cluster algebras.