We prove several relations on the $f$-vectors and Betti numbers of flag complexes. For every flag complex $Δ$, we show that there exists a balanced complex with the same $f$-vector as $Δ$, and whose top-dimensional Betti number is at least that of $Δ$, thereby extending a theorem of Frohmader by additionally taking homology into consideration. We obtain upper bounds on the top-dimensional Betti number of $Δ$ in terms of its face numbers. We also give a quantitative refinement of a theorem of Meshulam by establishing lower bounds on the $f$-vector of $Δ$, in terms of the top-dimensional Betti number of $Δ$. This result has a continuous analog: If $Δ$ is a $(d-1)$-dimensional flag complex whose $(d-1)$-th reduced homology group has dimension $a\geq 0$ (over some field), then the $f$-polynomial of $Δ$ satisfies the coefficient-wise inequality $f_Δ(x) \geq (1 + (\sqrt[d]{a}+1)x)^d$.
The flag f-vectors of three-colored complexes are characterized. This also characterizes the flag h-vectors of balanced Cohen-Macaulay complexes of dimension two, as well as the flag h-vectors of balanced shellable complexes of dimension two.
We give a survey on the recent results and problems on the face enumeration of flag complexes and flag simplicial spheres, with an emphasis on the characterization of face vectors of flag complexes, several lower-bound type of conjectures including the Charney-Davis conjecture and Gal's conjecture, and the upper bound conjecture for flag spheres and pseudomanifolds.
It is shown that conditions stronger in a certain sense than color-shifting cannot be placed on the class of colored complexes without changing the characterization of the flag f-vectors.
We characterize the cd-indices of Gorenstein* posets of rank 5, equivalently the flag f-vectors of Gorenstein* order complexes of dimension 3. As a corollary, we characterize the f-vectors of Gorenstein* order complexes in dimensions 3 and 4. This characterization rise a speculated intimate connection between the f-vectors of flag homology spheres and the f-vectors of Gorenstein* order complexes.
A conjecture of Kalai and Eckhoff that the face vector of an arbitrary flag complex is also the face vector of some particular balanced complex is verified.
Given a finite CAT(0) cubical complex, we define a flag simplicial complex associated to it, called the crossing complex. We show that the crossing complex holds much of the combinatorial information of the original cubical complex: for example, hyperplanes in the cubical complex correspond to vertex links in the crossing complex, and the crossing complex is balanced if and only if the cubical complex is cubically balanced. The most significant result is that the sets of $f$-vectors of CAT(0) cubical complexes and flag simplicial complexes are equal, up to an invertible linear transformation.
We prove that among all flag homology $5$-manifolds with $n$ vertices, the join of $3$ circles of as equal length as possible is the unique maximizer of all the face numbers. The same upper bounds on the face numbers hold for $5$-dimensional flag Eulerian normal pseudomanifolds.
A notion of an $i$-banner simplicial complex is introduced. For various values of $i$, these complexes interpolate between the class of flag complexes and the class of all simplicial complexes. Examples of simplicial spheres of an arbitrary dimension that are $(i+1)$-banner but not $i$-banner are constructed. It is shown that several theorems for flag complexes have appropriate $i$-banner analogues. Among them are (1) the codimension-$(i+j-1)$ skeleton of an $i$-banner homology sphere $Δ$ is $2(i+j)$-Cohen--Macaulay for all $0\leq j\leq \dimΔ+1-i$, and (2) for every $i$-banner simplicial compl…
Refining a basic result of Alexander, we show that two flag simplicial complexes are piecewise linearly homeomorphic if and only if they can be connected by a sequence of flag complexes, each obtained from the previous one by either an edge subdivision or its inverse. For flag spheres we pose new conjectures on their combinatorial structure forced by their face numbers, analogous to the extremal examples in the upper and lower bound theorems for simplicial spheres. Furthermore, we show that our algorithm to test the conjectures searches through the entire space of flag PL spheres of any given …
We show that if a $d$-dimensional Cohen-Macaulay complex is, in a certain sense, sufficiently "close" to being balanced, then there is a $d$-dimensional balanced Cohen-Macaulay complex having the same $f$-vector. This in turn provides some partial evidence for a conjecture of Kalai on the $f$-vectors of Cohen-Macaulay flag complexes.
We prove that the family of facets of a pure simplicial complex of dimension up to three satisfies the Erdős-Ko-Rado property whenever it is flag and has no boundary ridges. We conjecture the same to be true in arbitrary dimension and give evidence for this conjecture. Our motivation is that complexes with these two properties include flag pseudo-manifolds and cluster complexes.
Denham, Suciu and Panov, Ray computed ranks of homotopy groups and Poincaré series of a moment-angle-complex $\mathcal Z(\mathcal K$) / Davis-Januzskiewicz space $DJ(\mathcal K)$ associated to a flag simplicial complex $\mathcal K$. In this note we revisit these results and interpret them as polynomial bounds on the face numbers of an arbitrary simplicial flag complex.
It is proved that the Boolean algebra of rank n minimizes the flag f-vector among all graded lattices of rank n, whose proper part has nontrivial top-dimensional homology. The analogous statement for the flag h-vector is conjectured in the Cohen-Macaulay case.
We study the problem of maximizing Betti numbers of simplicial complexes. We prove an upper bound of 1.32^n for the sum of Betti numbers of any n-vertex flag complex and 1.25^n for the independence complex of a triangle-free graph. These findings imply upper bounds for the Betti numbers of various related classes of spaces, including the neighbourhood complex of a graph. We also make some related observations.
Starting from an unpublished conjecture of Kalai and from a conjecture of Eisenbud, Green and Harris, we study several problems relating h-vectors of Cohen-Macaulay, flag simplicial complexes and face vectors of simplicial complexes.
Let G_0,...,G_k be finite abelian groups and let G_0*...*G_k be the join of the 0-dimensional complexes G_i. We give a characterization of the integral k-coboundaries of subcomplexes of G_0*...*G_k in terms of the Fourier transform on the group G_0 \times ... \times G_k. This leads to an extension of a recent result of Musiker and Reiner on a topological interpretation of the cyclotomic polynomial.
Let X(G) denote the flag complex of a graph G=(V,E) on n vertices. We study relations between the first eigenvalues of successive higher Laplacians of X(G). One consequence is the following result: Let λ_2(G) denote the second smallest eigenvalue of the Laplacian of G. If λ_2(G)> \frac{kn}{k+1} then the real k-th reduced cohomology group H^k(X(G)) is zero. Applications include a lower bound on the homological connectivity of the independent sets complex I(G), in terms of a new graph domination parameter Γ(G) defined via certain vector representations of G. This in turns implies a Hall type the…
We introduce a construction on a flag complex that, by means of modifying the associated graph, generates a new flag complex whose $h$-factor is the face vector of the original complex. This construction yields a vertex-decomposable, hence Cohen-Macaulay, complex. From this we get a (non-numerical) characterisation of the face vectors of flag complexes and deduce also that the face vector of a flag complex is the $h$-vector of some vertex-decomposable flag complex. We conjecture that the converse of the latter is true and prove this, by means of an explicit construction, for $h$-vectors of Coh…
We classify flag complexes on at most 12 vertices with torsion in the first homology group. The result is moderately computer-aided. As a consequence we confirm a folklore conjecture that the smallest poset whose order complex is homotopy equivalent to the real projective plane (and also the smallest poset with torsion in the first homology group) has exactly 13 elements.
We investigate the representation of a symmetric group $S_n$ on the homology of its Quillen complex at a prime $p$. For homology groups in small codimension, we derive an explicit formula for this representation in terms of the representations of symmetric groups on homology groups of $p$-uniform hypergraph matching complexes. We conjecture an explicit formula for the representation of $S_n$ on the top homology group of the corresponding hypergraph matching complex when $n \equiv 1 \bmod p$. Our conjecture follows from work of Bouc when $p=2$, and we prove the conjecture when $p=3$.
We consider a $q$-analogue of abstract simplicial complexes, called $q$-complexes, and discuss the notion of shellability for such complexes. It is shown that $q$-complexes formed by independent subspaces of a $q$-matroid are shellable. Further, we explicitly determine the homology of $q$-complexes corresponding to uniform $q$-matroids. We also outline some partial results concerning the determination of homology of arbitrary shellable $q$-complexes..
We prove a theorem allowing us to find convex-ear decompositions for rank-selected subposets of posets that are unions of Boolean sublattices in a coherent fashion. We then apply this theorem to geometric lattices and face posets of shellable complexes, obtaining new inequalities for their h-vectors. Finally, we use the latter decomposition to prove new inequalities for the flag h-vectors of face posets of Cohen-Macaulay complexes.
A colored complex of type $\mathbf{a} = (a_1, \dots, a_n)$ is a simplicial complex $Δ$ on a vertex set $V$, together with an ordered partition $(V_1, \dots, V_n)$ of $V$, such that every face $F$ of $Δ$ satisfies $|F \cap V_i| \leq a_i$. For each $\mathbf{b} = (b_1, \dots, b_n) \leq \mathbf{a}$, let $f_{\mathbf{b}}$ be the number of faces $F$ of $Δ$ such that $|F \cap V_i| = b_i$. The array of integers $\{f_{\mathbf{b}}\}_{\mathbf{b} \leq \mathbf{a}}$ is called the fine $f$-vector of $Δ$, and it is a refinement of the $f$-vector of $Δ$. In this paper, we generalize the notion of Macaulay repre…
Let $V$ be an $n$-dimensional vector space over the finite field of order $q$. The spherical building $X_V$ associated with $GL(V)$ is the order complex of the nontrivial linear subspaces of $V$. Let $\mathfrak{g}$ be the local coefficient system on $X_V$, whose value on the simplex $σ=[V_0 \subset \cdots \subset V_p] \in X_V$ is given by $\mathfrak{g}(σ)=V_0$. Following the work of Lusztig and Dupont, we study the homology module $D^k(V)=\tilde{H}_{n-k-1}(X_V;\mathfrak{g})$. Our results include a construction of an explicit basis of $D^1(V)$, and the following twisted analogue of a result of …
We present some enumerative and structural results for flag homology spheres. For a flag homology sphere $Δ$, we show that its $γ$-vector $γ^Δ=(1,γ_1,γ_2,\ldots)$ satisfies: \begin{align*} γ_j=0,\text{ for all } j>γ_1, \quad γ_2\leq\binom{γ_1}{2}, \quad γ_{γ_1}\in\{0,1\}, \quad \text{ and }γ_{γ_1-1}\in\{0,1,2,γ_1\}, \end{align*} supporting a conjecture of Nevo and Petersen. Further we characterize the possible structures for $Δ$ in extremal cases. As an application, the techniques used produce infinitely many $f$-vectors of flag balanced simplicial complexes that are not $γ$-vectors of flag ho…
We study the equivariant flag $f$-vector and equivariant flag $h$-vector of a balanced relative simplicial complex with respect to a group action. When the complex satisfies Serre's condition $(S_{\ell}),$ we show that the equivariant flag $h$-vector, the equivariant $h$-vector, and the equivariant $f$-vector satisfy several inequalities. We apply these results to the study of $P$-partitions of double posets, and weak colorings of mixed graphs.
We study the augmented Bergman complex of a closure operator on a finite set, which interpolates between the order complex of proper flats and the independence complex of the operator. In 2020, Braden, Huh, Matherne, Proudfoot, and Wang showed that augmented Bergman complexes of matroids are always gallery-connected, and recently Bullock, Kelley, Reiner, Ren, Shemy, Shen, Sun, Tao, and Zhang strengthened "gallery-connected" to "shellable" by providing two classes of shelling orders: "flag-to-basis" shellings and "basis-to-flag" shellings. We show that augmented Bergman complexes of matroids ar…
We propose a combinatorial approach to the following strengthening of Gal's conjecture: $γ(Δ)\ge γ(E)$ coefficientwise, where $Δ$ is a flag homology sphere and $E\subseteq Δ$ an induced homology sphere of codimension $1$. We provide partial evidence in favor of this approach, and prove a nontrivial nonlinear inequality that follows from the above conjecture, for boundary complexes of flag $d$-polytopes: $h_1(Δ) h_i(Δ) \ge (d-i+1)h_{i-1}(Δ) + (i+1) h_{i+1}(Δ)$ for all $0\le i\le d$.
In this paper, we investigate a relation between finite graphs, simplicial flag complexes and right-angled Coxeter groups, and we provide a class of reconstructible finite graphs. We show that if $Γ$ is a finite graph which is the 1-skeleton of some simplicial flag complex $L$ which is a homology manifold of dimension $n \ge 1$, then the graph $Γ$ is reconstructible.
The $γ$-vector is an important enumerative invariant of a flag simplicial homology sphere. It has been conjectured by Gal that this vector is nonnegative for every such sphere $Δ$ and by Reiner, Postnikov and Williams that it increases when $Δ$ is replaced by any flag simplicial homology sphere which geometrically subdivides $Δ$. Using the nonnegativity of the $γ$-vector in dimension 3, proved by Davis and Okun, as well as Stanley's theory of simplicial subdivisions and local $h$-vectors, the latter conjecture is confirmed in this paper in dimensions 3 and 4.
The face numbers of simplicial complexes without missing faces of dimension larger than $i$ are studied. It is shown that among all such $(d-1)$-dimensional complexes with non-vanishing top homology, a certain polytopal sphere has the componentwise minimal $f$-vector; and moreover, among all such 2-Cohen--Macaulay (2-CM) complexes, the same sphere has the componentwise minimal $h$-vector. It is also verified that the $l$-skeleton of a flag $(d-1)$-dimensional 2-CM complex is $2(d-l)$-CM while the $l$-skeleton of a flag PL $(d-1)$-sphere is $2(d-l)$-homotopy CM. In addition, tight lower bounds …
We introduce the weighted path homology on the category of weigh\-ted directed hypergraphs and describe conditions of homotopy invariance of weighted path homology groups. We give several examples that explain the nontriviality of the introduced notions.
We use the probabilistic method to construct examples of conjectured phenomenon about asymptotic syzygies. In particular, we use the Stanley-Reisner ideals of random flag complexes to construct new examples of Ein and Lazarsfeld's nonvanishing for asymptotic syzygies and of Ein, Erman, and Lazarsfeld's conjectural on the asymptotic normal distribution of Betti numbers.
We analyze the asymptotic extremal growth rate of the Betti numbers of clique complexes of graphs on n vertices not containing a fixed forbidden induced subgraph H. In particular, we prove a theorem of the alternative: for any H the growth rate achieves exactly one of five possible exponentials, that is, independent of the field of coefficients, the nth root of the maximal total Betti number over n-vertex graphs with no induced copy of H has a limit, as n tends to infinity, and, ranging over all H, exactly five different limits are attained. For the interesting case where H is the 4-cycle, the…
Strong placement games (SP-games) are a class of combinatorial games whose structure allows one to describe the game via simplicial complexes. A natural question is whether well-known invariants of combinatorial games, such as "game value", appear as invariants of the simplicial complexes. This paper is the first step in that direction. We show that every simplicial complex encodes a certain type of SP-game (called an "invariant SP-game") whose ruleset is independent of the board it is played on. We also show that in the class of SP-games isomorphic simplicial complexes correspond to isomorphi…
Using an intuition from metric geometry, we prove that any flag and normal simplicial complex satisfies the non-revisiting path conjecture. As a consequence, the diameter of its facet-ridge graph is smaller than the number of vertices minus the dimension, as in the Hirsch conjecture. This proves the Hirsch conjecture for all flag polytopes, and more generally, for all (connected) flag homology manifolds.
Chessboard complexes and their relatives have been one of important recurring themes of topological combinatorics. Closely related ``cycle-free chessboard complexes'' have been recently introduced by Ault and Fiedorowicz as a tool for computing symmetric analogues of the cyclic homology of algebras. We study connectivity properties of these complexes and prove a result that confirms a strengthened conjecture of Ault and Fiedorowicz.
Regular incidence complexes are combinatorial incidence structures generalizing regular convex polytopes, regular complex polytopes, various types of incidence geometries, and many other highly symmetric objects. The special case of abstract regular polytopes has been well-studied. The paper describes the combinatorial structure of a regular incidence complex in terms of a system of distinguished generating subgroups of its automorphism group or a flag-transitive subgroup. Then the groups admitting a flag-transitive action on an incidence complex are characterized as generalized string C-group…
We will study monomial ideals $I$ in the exterior algebra as well as in the polynomial ring whose generic initial ideal is constant for all term orders up to permutations of variables. First, in the exterior algebra, we determine all graphs and all flag complexes whose exterior face ideal satisfies the above condition. Second, in the polynomial ring, it will be shown that the generic initial ideal $\gin_σ(I(G))$ of the edge ideal $I(G)$ of a graph $G$ is constant for all term orders $σ$ up to permutations of variables if and only if $G$ is a complete bipartite graph.
Regular polygonal complexes in euclidean 3-space are discrete polyhedra-like structures with finite or infinite polygons as faces and with finite graphs as vertex-figures, such that their symmetry groups are transitive on the flags. The present paper and its predecessor describe a complete classification of regular polygonal complexes in 3-space. In Part I we established basic structural results for the symmetry groups, discussed operations on their generators, characterized the complexes with face mirrors as the 2-skeletons of the regular 4-apeirotopes in 3-space, and fully enumerated the sim…
This paper verifies a conjecture of Edelman and Reiner regarding the homology of the $h$-complex of a Boolean algebra. A discrete Morse function with no low-dimensional critical cells is constructed, implying a lower bound on connectivity. This together with an Alexander duality result of Edelman and Reiner implies homology-vanishing also in high dimensions. Finally, possible generalizations to certain classes of supersolvable lattices are suggested.
For a simplicial complex X on {1,2, ..., n} we define enriched homology and cohomology modules. They are graded modules over k[x_1, ..., x_n] whose ranks are equal to the dimensions of the reduced homology and cohomology groups. We characterize Cohen-Macaulay, l-Cohen-Macaulay, Buchsbaum, and Gorenstein* complexes X, and also orientable manifolds in terms of the enriched modules. We introduce the notion of girth for simplicial complexes and make a conjecture relating the girth to invariants of the simplicial complex. We also put strong vanishing conditions on the enriched homology modules and …
The independence complex $\mathrm{Ind}(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the simplicial complex formed by its independent sets. This article introduces a deformation of the simplicial boundary map of $\mathrm{Ind}(G)$ that gives rise to a double complex with trivial homology. Filtering this double complex in the right direction induces a spectral sequence that converges to zero and contains on its first page the homology of the independence complexes of $G$ and various subgraphs of $G$, obtained by removing independent sets and their neighborhoods from $G$. It is shown that this spectral sequence may be u…
For any flag simplicial complex $K$, we describe the multigraded Poincare series, the minimal number of relations and the degrees of these relations in the Pontryagin algebra of the corresponding moment-angle complex $Z_K$. We compute the LS-category of $Z_K$ for flag complexes and give a lower bound in the general case. The key observation is that the Milnor-Moore spectral sequence collapses at the second sheet for flag $K$. We also show that the results of Panov and Ray about the Pontryagin algebras of Davis-Januszkiewicz spaces are valid for arbitrary coefficient rings, and introduce the $(…
We compute the homology of random Čech complexes over a homogeneous Poisson process on the d-dimensional torus, and show that there are, coarsely, two phase transitions. The first transition is analogous to the Erdős-Rényi phase transition, where the Čech complex becomes connected. The second transition is where all the other homology groups are computed correctly (almost simultaneously). Our calculations also suggest a finer measurement of scales, where there is a further refinement to this picture and separation between different homology groups.
If $K$ is a simplicial complex on $m$ vertices the flagification of $K$ is the minimal flag complex $K^f$ on the same vertex set that contains $K$. Letting $L$ be the set of vertices, there is a sequence of simplicial inclusions $L\to K\to K^f$. This induces a sequence of maps of polyhedral products $(\underline X,\underline A)^L\stackrel g\longrightarrow(\underline X,\underline A)^K\stackrel f\longrightarrow (\underline X,\underline A)^{K^f}$. We show that $Ωf$ and $Ωf\circΩg$ have right homotopy inverses and draw consequences. For a flag complex $K$ the polyhedral product of the form $(\unde…
We study random simplicial complexes in the multi-parameter upper model. In this model simplices of various dimensions are taken randomly and independently, and our random simplicial complex $Y$ is then taken to be the minimal simplicial complex containing this collection of simplices. We study the asymptotic behavior of the homology of $Y$ as the number of vertices goes to $\infty$. We observe the following phenomenon asymptotically almost surely. The given probabilities with which the simplices are taken determine a range of dimensions $\ell \leq k \leq \ell'$ with $\ell' \leq 2\ell +1$, out…
The random $2$-dimensional simplicial complex process starts with a complete graph on $n$ vertices, and in every step a new $2$-dimensional face, chosen uniformly at random, is added. We prove that with probability tending to $1$ as $n\to\infty$, the first homology group over $\mathbb Z$ vanishes at the very moment when all the edges are covered by triangular faces.
For every $k \ge 1$, the $k$th cohomology group $H^k(X, \Q)$ of the random flag complex $X \sim X(n,p)$ passes through two phase transitions: one where it appears, and one where it vanishes. We describe the vanishing threshold and show that it is sharp. Using the same spectral methods, we also find a sharp threshold for the fundamental group $π_1(X)$ to have Kazhdan's property (T). Combining with earlier results, we obtain as a corollary that for every $k \ge 3$ there is a regime in which the random flag complex is rationally homotopy equivalent to a bouquet of $k$-dimensional spheres.
Let Y ~ Y_d(n,p) denote the Bernoulli random d-dimensional simplicial complex. We answer a question of Linial and Meshulam from 2003, showing that the threshold for vanishing of homology H_{d-1}(Y; Z) is less than 80d log n / n. This bound is tight, up to a constant factor.
