Pentagrams, inscribed polygons, and prym varieties

The pentagram map is a discrete integrable system on the module space of planar polygons. The correspondingrst integrals are so-called monodromy invariants E₁;O₁;E₂;O₂;… By analyzing the combinatorics of these invariants, R. Schwartz and S. Tabachnikov have recently proved that for polygons inscribed in a conic section one has E_k = O_k for all k. In this paper we give a simple conceptual proof of the Schwartz-Tabachnikov theorem. Our main observation is that for inscribed polygons the corresponding monodromy satisfies a certain self-duality relation. From this we also deduce that the space of inscribed polygons with Fixed values of the monodromy invariants is an open dense subset in the Prym variety (i.e., a half-dimensional torus in the Jacobian) of the spectral curve. As a byproduct, we also prove another conjecture of Schwartz and Tabachnikov on positivity of monodromy invariants for convex polygons.