Constrained Triangulations, Volumes of Polytopes, and Unit Equations

Given a polytope P in R ^d and a subset U of its vertices, is there a triangulation of P using d-simplices that all contain U? We answer this question by proving an equivalent and easy-to-check combinatorial criterion for the facets of P. Our proof relates triangulations of P to triangulations of its “shadow”, a projection to a lower-dimensional space determined by U. In particular, we obtain a formula relating the volume of P with the volume of its shadow. This leads to an exact formula for the volume of a polytope arising in the theory of unit equations.