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We associate to a finite digraph D a lattice polytope PD whose vertices are the rows of the Laplacian matrix of D. This generalizes a construction introduced by Braun and the third author. As a consequence of the Matrix-Tree Theorem, we show that the normalized volume of PD equals the complexity of D, and PD contains the origin in its relative interior if and only if D is strongly connected. Interesting connections with other families of simplices are established and then used to describe reflexivity, the h∗-polynomial, and the integer decomposition property of PD in these cases. We extend Braun and Meyer’s study of cycles by considering cycle digraphs. In this setting, we characterize reflexivity and show there are only four non-trivial reflexive Laplacian simplices having the integer decomposition property.

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We prove a homology vanishing theorem for graphs with positive Bakry-\'Emery curvature, analogous to a classic result of Bochner on manifolds\cite {Bochner}. Specifically, we prove that if a graph has positive curvature at every vertex, then its first homology group is trivial, where the notion of homology that we use for graphs is the path homology developed by Grigor'yan, Lin, Muranov, and Yau\cite {Grigoryan2}.%\Hm {added the fundamental group curvature relation} We moreover prove that the fundamental group is finite for graphs with positive Bakry-\'Emery curvature, analogous to a classic result of Myers on manifolds\cite {Myers1941}. The proofs draw on several separate areas of graph theory. We study graph coverings, gain graphs, and cycle spaces of graphs, in addition to the Bakry-\'Emery curvature and the path homology. The main results follow as a consequence of several different relationships developed among these different areas. Specifically, we show that a graph with positive curvature can have no non-trivial infinite cover preserving 3-cycles and 4-cycles, and give a combinatorial interpretation of the first path homology in terms of the cycle space of a graph. We relate cycle spaces of graphs to gain graphs with abelian gain group, and relate these to coverings of graphs. Along the way, we prove other new facts about gain graphs, coverings, and cycles spaces that are of related interest. Furthermore, we relate gain graphs to graph homotopy and the fundamental group developed by Grigor'yan, Lin, Muranov, and Yau\cite {Grigoryan_homotopy}, and obtain an alternative proof to their result that the abelianization of the fundamental

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