Irrational Triangles with Polynomial Ehrhart Functions

While much research has been done on the Ehrhart functions of integral and rational polytopes, little is known in the irrational case. In our main theorem, we determine exactly when the Ehrhart function of a right triangle with legs on the axes and slant edge with irrational slope is a polynomial. We also investigate several other situations where the period of the Ehrhart function of a polytope is less than the denominator of that polytope. For example, we give examples of irrational polytopes with polynomial Ehrhart function in any dimension, and we find triangles with periods dividing any even-index k-Fibonacci number, but with larger denominators.