Due to work of W. Parry it is known that the growth rate of a hyperbolic Coxeter group acting cocompactly on ${\mathbb H^3}$ is a Salem number. This being the arithmetic situation, we prove that the simplex group (3,5,3) has smallest growth rate among all cocompact hyperbolic Coxeter groups, and that it is as such unique. Our approach provides a different proof for the analog situation in ${\mathbb H^2}$ where E. Hironaka identified Lehmer's number as the minimal growth rate among all cocompact planar hyperbolic Coxeter groups and showed that it is (uniquely) achieved by the Coxeter triangle group (3,7).

Given a complete CAT(0) space $X$ endowed with a geometric action of a group $\Gamma$, it is known that if $\Gamma$ contains a free abelian group of rank $n$, then $X$ contains a geometric flat of dimension $n$. We prove the converse of this statement in the special case where $X$ is a convex subcomplex of the CAT(0) realization of a Coxeter group $W$, and $\Gamma$ is a subgroup of $W$. In particular a convex cocompact subgroup of a Coxeter group is Gromov-hyperbolic if and only if it does not contain a free abelian group of rank 2. Our result also provides an explicit control on geometric flats in the CAT(0) realization of arbitrary Tits buildings.

Petrie polygons, especially as they arise in the study of regular polytopes and Coxeter groups, have been studied by geometers and group theorists since the early part of the twentieth century. An open question is the determination of which polyhedra possess Petrie polygons that are simple closed curves. The current work explores combinatorial structures in abstract polytopes, called Petrie schemes, that generalize the notion of a Petrie polygon. It is established that all of the regular convex polytopes and honeycombs in Euclidean spaces, as well as all of the Gr\"unbaum--Dress polyhedra, possess Petrie schemes that are not self-intersecting and thus have Petrie polygons that are simple closed curves. Partial results are obtained for several other classes of less symmetric polytopes.