On face numbers of polytopes

A polytope is called simplicial if all its proper faces are simplices. The celebrated g-theorem gives a complete characterization of the possible face numbers (a.k.a. f-vector) of simplicial polytopes, conjectured by McMullen ’70 and proved by Billera-Lee (sufficiency) and by Stanley (necessity) ’80. The latter uses deep relations with commutative algebra and algebraic geometry. Moving to general polytopes, a finer information than the f-vector is given by the flag-f-vector, counting chains of faces according to their dimensions. Here much less is known, or even conjectured.

I will discuss what works and what breaks, at least conjecturally, when passing from simplicial to general polytopes, or subfamilies of interest.