Antiprism (disambiguation)

An antiprism, defined in the three-dimensional sense, is a polyhedron that consists of two bases in opposite orientations connected by triangles. The dual of an antiprism is a trapezohedron.

Uniform antiprisms exist for any regular polygon {n/d} where n/d > 1.5. When n/d < 2, the triangular faces of the corresponding antiprism cross its rotational symmetry axis, and thus these antiprisms are often called retroprisms or crossed antiprisms.

Antiprisms make up one of the two infinite families of uniform polyhedra, the other being the family of prisms. These are in fact related, as the {n/d} antiprism can be constructed by alternation of a {2n/d}-gonal prism.

Extensions to higher dimensions
There are two contested definitions of the word "antiprism" in higher dimensions, along with one closely related concept.

Dual bases
The first definition refers to a polytope with vertices lying in two parallel planes, where the bases are duals to each other and are connected by various pyramidal facets. For example, under this definition, the cubic-octahedral prismatoid can be seen as cubic antiprism or an octahedral antiprism, and the hexadecachoron can be seen a tetrahedral antiprism. Unless their bases are self-dual, as happens with the simplex cases, which produce cross polytopes, and with the 5D icositetrachoric antiprism, these antiprisms are generally not isogonal, and unless their bases are regular, they are not even CRF. This is the only definition that can be applied to any polytope.

Alternated prisms
The second definition refers to an alternated prism where the base is alternatable, such as the omnisnub cubic antiprism, derived from the great rhombicuboctahedral prism, and the hexadecachoron (tetrahedral antiprism), derived from the tesseract (cubic prism). Unlike the first definition, it only includes bases that are congruent and does not necessarily imply self-duality.

Duoantiprisms, following from the second definition, are alternations of duoprisms. The grand antiprism is confusingly named as such, although it is actually an alternated decagonal ditetragoltriate.

Unlike prisms, antiprisms in four dimensions or greater generally have no uniform realization, because there are too many edge lengths to be rescaled to equal length. Exceptions do exist in any dimension, as the demihypercubes, derived from hypercubes, can always be made uniform.

The vertex figure of an antiprism (under the second definition) is a wedge derived from a simplex two dimensions lower than the antiprism and the base's vertex figure. For example, the vertex figure of a demipenteract (hexadecachoric antiprism) is a rectified pentachoron, which is a wedge of a tetrahedron and an octahedron.

Alterprisms
A closely related concept to antiprisms are alterprisms, constructed by lacing two geometrically-identical polytopes in some opposite orientations together. Examples include lacing together polytopes with simplexial or demicubic symmetry in any dimension, icositetrachoric symmetry, or the symmetry of the E6 family. Many of these polytopes are scaliform.