We study a natural model of random 2-dimensional cubical complex which is a subcomplex of an n-dimensional cube, and where every possible square $2$-face is included independently with probability p. Our main result is to exhibit a sharp threshold p=1/2 for homology vanishing as $n \to \infty$. This is a 2-dimensional analogue of the Burtin and Erdős-Spencer theorems characterizing the connectivity threshold for random cubical graphs. Our main result can also be seen as a cubical counterpart to the Linial--Meshulam theorem for random 2-dimensional simplicial complexes. However, the models exhibit strikingly different behaviors. We show that if $p > 1 - \sqrt{1/2} \approx 0.2929$, then with high probability the fundamental group is a free group with one generator for every maximal $1$-dimensional face. As a corollary, homology vanishing and simple connectivity have the same threshold, even in the strong "hitting time" sense. This is in contrast with the simplicial case, where the thresholds are far apart. The proof depends on an iterative algorithm for contracting cycles -- we show that with high probability the algorithm rapidly and dramatically simplifies the fundamental group, converging after only a few steps.
A foundation is laid for a theory of combinatorial groupoids, allowing us to use concepts like ``holonomy'', ``parallel transport'', ``bundles'', ``combinatorial curvature'' etc. in the context of simplicial (polyhedral) complexes, posets, graphs, polytopes and other combinatorial objects. A new, holonomy-type invariant for cubical complexes is introduced, leading to a combinatorial ``Theorema Egregium'' for cubical complexes non-embeddable into cubical lattices. Parallel transport of Hom-complexes and maps is used as a tool for extending Babson-Kozlov-Lovasz graph coloring results to more gen…
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.
In this paper we show that graphs of "neighbourly" cubical complexes -- cubical complexes in which every pair of vertices spans a (unique) cube -- have good expansion properties, using a technique based on multicommodity flows. By showing that graphs of stable set polytopes are graphs of neighbourly cubical complexes we give a new proof that graphs of stable set polytopes have edge expansion 1.
The $h$-polynomial of the barycentric subdivision of any $n$-dimensional cubical complex with nonnegative cubical $h$-vector is shown to have only real roots and to be interlaced by the Eulerian polynomial of type $B_n$. This result applies to barycentric subdivisions of shellable cubical complexes and, in particular, to barycentric subdivisions of cubical convex polytopes and answers affirmatively a question of Brenti, Mohammadi and Welker.
We study the topology of a random cubical complex associated to Bernoulli site percolation on a cubical grid. We begin by establishing a limit law for homotopy types. More precisely, looking within an expanding window, we define a sequence of normalized counting measures (counting connected components according to homotopy type), and we show that this sequence of random probability measures converges in probability to a deterministic probability measure. We then investigate the dependence of the limiting homotopy measure on the coloring probability $p$, and our results show a qualitative chang…
We provide a number of new construction techniques for cubical complexes and cubical polytopes, and thus for cubifications (hexahedral mesh generation). As an application we obtain an instance of a cubical 4-polytope that has a non-orientable dual manifold (a Klein bottle). This confirms an existence conjecture of Hetyei (1995). More systematically, we prove that every normal crossing codimension one immersion of a compact 2-manifold into R^3 PL-equivalent to a dual manifold immersion of a cubical 4-polytope. As an instance we obtain a cubical 4-polytope with a cubation of Boy's surface as a d…
We consider expansion and property testing in the language of incidence geometry, covering both simplicial and cubical complexes in any dimension. We develop a general method for passing from an explicit description of the cohomology group, which need not be trivial, to a testability proof with linear ratio between errors. The method is demonstrated by testing functions on 2-cells in cubical complexes to be induced from the edges.
We consider closed simplicial and cubical $n$-complexes in terms of link of their $(n-2)$-faces. Especially, we consider the case, when this link has size 3 or 4, i.e., every $(n-2)$-face is contained in 3 or 4 $n$-faces. Such simplicial complexes with {\em short} (i.e. of length 3 or 4) links are completely classified by their {\em characteristic partition}. We consider also embedding into hypercubes of the skeletons of simplicial and cubical complexes.
We describe an algorithm to compute the geodesics in an arbitrary CAT(0) cubical complex. A key tool is a correspondence between cubical complexes of global non-positive curvature and posets with inconsistent pairs. This correspondence also gives an explicit realization of such a complex as the state complex of a reconfigurable system, and a way to embed any interval in the integer lattice cubing of its dimension.
We prove a Matrix-Tree Theorem enumerating the spanning trees of a cell complex in terms of the eigenvalues of its cellular Laplacian operators, generalizing a previous result for simplicial complexes. As an application, we obtain explicit formulas for spanning tree enumerators and Laplacian eigenvalues of cubes; the latter are integers. We prove a weighted version of the eigenvalue formula, providing evidence for a conjecture on weighted enumeration of cubical spanning trees. We introduce a cubical analogue of shiftedness, and obtain a recursive formula for the Laplacian eigenvalues of shifte…
Ehrenborg noted that all tilings of a bipartite planar graph are encoded by its cubical matching complex and claimed that this complex is collapsible. We point out to an oversight in his proof and explain why these complexes can be the union of collapsible complexes. Also, we prove that all links in these complexes are suspensions up to homotopy. Furthermore, we extend the definition of a cubical matching complex to planar graphs that are not necessarily bipartite, and show that these complexes are either contractible or a disjoint union of contractible complexes. For a simple connected region…
The notion of polytopal map between two polytopal complexes is defined. Surprisingly, this definition is quite simple and extends naturally those of simplicial and cubical maps. It is then possible to define an induced chain map between the associated chain complexes. Finally, we use this new tool to give the first combinatorial proof of the splitting necklace theorem of Alon. The paper ends with open questions, such as the existence of Sperner's lemma for a polytopal complex or the existence of a cubical approximation theorem.
We present a version of the weighted cellular matrix-tree theorem that is suitable for calculating explicit generating functions for spanning trees of highly structured families of simplicial and cell complexes. We apply the result to give weighted generalizations of the tree enumeration formulas of Adin for complete colorful complexes, and of Duval, Klivans and Martin for skeleta of hypercubes. We investigate the latter further via a logarithmic generating function for weighted tree enumeration, and derive another tree-counting formula using the unsigned Euler characteristics of skeleta of a …
Sphere-bases are constructed for the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ vector space formed by the $k$-dimensional subcomplexes, of $n$-simplex (or $n$-cube), for which every $(k{-}1)$-face is contained in a positive even number of $k$-cells; addition is symmetric difference of the corresponding sets of $k$-cells. The bases consist of the boundaries of an algorithmically-specified family of $k{+}1$-simplexes or $k{+}1$-cubes. Geometric properties of these bases are investigated.
Face numbers of triangulations of simplicial complexes were studied by Stanley by use of his concept of a local $h$-vector. It is shown that a parallel theory exists for cubical subdivisions of cubical complexes, in which the role of the $h$-vector of a simplicial complex is played by the (short or long) cubical $h$-vector of a cubical complex, defined by Adin, and the role of the local $h$-vector of a triangulation of a simplex is played by the (short or long) cubical local $h$-vector of a cubical subdivision of a cube. The cubical local $h$-vectors are defined in this paper and are shown to …
The present paper is a continuation of author's paper arXiv:1909.00940 [math.AT] devoted to the lemmas of Alexander and Sperner, but is independent from it. We begin by a step back from Alexander and Sperner to Lebesgue work on the invariance of the dimension. In contrast with almost everybody else, Lebesgue worked with cubes rather than with simplices. His methods were developed by Hurewicz and Lusternik-Schnirelmann and then forgotten. In the present paper these methods are recast in the language of cubical chains and cochains. After this, we present a new approach to Lebesgue and Lusternik-…
Given a reconfigurable system X, such as a robot moving on a grid or a set of particles traversing a graph without colliding, the possible positions of X naturally form a cubical complex S(X). When S(X) is a CAT(0) space, we can explicitly construct the shortest path between any two points, for any of the four most natural metrics: distance, time, number of moves, and number of steps of simultaneous moves. CAT(0) cubical complexes are in correspondence with posets with inconsistent pairs (PIPs), so we can prove that a state complex S(X) is CAT(0) by identifying the corresponding PIP. We illust…
Let $ρ:(D^2)^m\to I^m$ be the orbit map for the diagonal action of the torus $T^m$ on the unit poly-disk $(D^2)^m$, $I^m=[0,1]^m$ is the unit cube. Let $C$ be a cubical subcomplex in $I^m$. The moment-angle complex $\ma(C)$ is a $T^m$-invariant bigraded cellular decomposition of the subset $ρ^{-1}(C)\subset(D^2)^m$ with cells corresponding to the faces of $C$. Different combinatorial problems concerning cubical complexes and related combinatorial objects can be treated by studying the equivariant topology of corresponding moment-angle complexes. Here we consider moment-angle complexes defined …
This paper studies Bernoulli cell complexes from the perspective of persistent homology, Tutte polynomials, and random-cluster models. Following the previous work [9], we first show the asymptotic order of the expected lifetime sum of the persistent homology for the Bernoulli cell complex process on the $\ell$-cubical lattice. Then, an explicit formula of the expected lifetime sum using the Tutte polynomial is derived. Furthermore, we study a higher dimensional generalization of the random-cluster model derived from the Edwards-Sokal type coupling, and show some basic results such as the posit…
We use category-theoretic techniques to provide two proofs showing that for a higher-rank graph $Λ$, its cubical (co-)homology and categorical (co-)homology groups are isomorphic in all degrees, thus answering a question of Kumjian, Pask and Sims in the positive. Our first proof uses the topological realization of a higher-rank graph, which was introduced by Kaliszewski, Kumjian, Quigg, and Sims. In our more combinatorial second proof, we construct, explicitly and in both directions, maps on the level of (co-)chain complexes that implement said isomorphism. Along the way, we extend the definit…
This expository article is based on a lecture from the Stanford Symposium on Algebraic Topology: Application and New Directions, held in honor of Gunnar Carlsson, Ralph Cohen, and Ib Madsen.
The article studies power complexes and generalized power complexes, and investigates the algebraic structure of their automorphism groups. The combinatorial incidence structures involved are cube-like, in the sense that they have many structural properties in common with higher-dimensional cubes and cubical tessellations on manifolds. Power complexes have repeatedly appeared in applications.
We compute the cohomology groups of the spaces of colorings of cycles, i.e., of the prodsimplicial complexes Hom(C_m,K_n). We perform the computation first with Z_2, and then with integer coefficients. The main technical tool is to use spectral sequences in conjunction with a detailed combinatorial analysis of a family of cubical complexes, which we call torus front complexes. As an application of our method, we demonstrate how to collapse each connected component of Hom(C_m,C_n) onto a garland of cubes.
Several recent papers have addressed the problem of characterizing the $f$-vectors of cubical polytopes. This is largely motivated by the complete characterization of the $f$-vectors of simplicial polytopes given by Stanley, Billera, and Lee in 1980. Along these lines Blind and Blind have shown that unlike in the simplicial case, there are parity restrictions on the $f$-vectors of cubical polytopes. In particular, except for polygons, all even dimensional cubical polytopes must have an even number of vertices. Here this result is extended to a class of zonotopal complexes which includes simply…
The class of quasi-median graphs is a generalisation of median graphs, or equivalently of CAT(0) cube complexes. The purpose of this thesis is to introduce these graphs in geometric group theory. In the first part of our work, we extend the definition of hyperplanes from CAT(0) cube complexes, and we show that the geometry of a quasi-median graph essentially reduces to the combinatorics of its hyperplanes. In the second part, we exploit the specific structure of the hyperplanes to state combination results. The main idea is that if a group acts in a suitable way on a quasi-median graph so that…
The paper surveys some new results and open problems connected with such fundamental combinatorial concepts as polytopes, simplicial complexes, cubical complexes, and subspace arrangements. Particular attention is paid to the case of simplicial and cubical subdivisions of manifolds and, especially, spheres. We describe important constructions which allow to study all these combinatorial objects by means of methods of commutative and homological algebra. The proposed approach to combinatorial problems relies on the theory of moment-angle complexes, currently being developed by the authors. The …
In 1984, Dancis proved that any $d$-dimensional simplicial manifold is determined by its $(\lfloor d/2 \rfloor + 1)$-skeleton. This paper adapts his proof to the setting of cubical complexes that can be embedded into a cube of arbitrary dimension. Under some additional conditions (for example, if the cubical manifold is a sphere), the result can be tightened to the $\lceil d/2 \rceil$-skeleton when $d \geq 3$.
There has been considerable recent interest, primarily motivated by problems in applied algebraic topology, in the homology of random simplicial complexes. We consider the scenario in which the vertices of the simplices are the points of a random point process in $\mathbb {R}^d$, and the edges and faces are determined according to some deterministic rule, typically leading to Čech and Vietoris-Rips complexes. In particular, we obtain results about homology, as measured via the growth of Betti numbers, when the vertices are the points of a general stationary point process. This significantly ex…
The independence complex of a graph G is a simplicial complex whose simplices are the independent sets in G. In the last couple of decades, the independence complexes of square grids (with various boundary conditions) have gained much attention because of their connections with the hard square model from statistical physics. In this article, we prove that if G is an $m\times n$ grid with open or cylindrical boundary condition then its independence complex is homotopy equivalent to a wedge of spheres. A part of this result settles a conjecture of Iriye.
The clique complex of a graph G is a simplicial complex whose simplices are all the cliques of G, and the line graph L(G) of G is a graph whose vertices are the edges of G and the edges of L(G) are incident edges of G. In this article, we determine the homotopy type of the clique complexes of line graphs for several classes of graphs including triangle-free graphs, chordal graphs, complete multipartite graphs, wheel-free graphs, and 4-regular circulant graphs. We also give a closed form formula for the homotopy type of these complexes in several cases.
Nested set complexes appear as the combinatorial core of De Concini-Procesi arrangement models. We show that nested set complexes are homotopy equivalent to the order complexes of the underlying meet-semilattices without their minimal elements. For atomic semilattices, we consider the realization of nested set complexes by simplicial fans as proposed in math.AG/0305142 by the first author and S. Yuzvinsky. We show that in this case the nested set complexes in fact are homeomorphic to the mentioned order complexes.
We introduce the polygonalisation complex of a surface, a cube complex whose vertices correspond to polygonalisations. This is a geometric model for the mapping class group and it is motivated by works of Harer, Mosher and Penner. Using properties of the flip graph, we show that the midcubes in the polygonalisation complex can be extended to a family of embedded and separating hyperplanes, parametrised by the arcs in the surface. We study the crossing graph of these hyperplanes and prove that it is quasi-isometric to the arc complex. We use the crossing graph to prove that, generically, differ…
Given a polytopal complex $X$, we examine the topological complement of its $k$-skeleton. We construct a long exact sequence relating the homologies of the skeleton complements and links of faces in $X$, and using this long exact sequence, we obtain characterisations of Cohen-Macaulay and Leray complexes, stacked balls, and neighbourly spheres in terms of their skeleton complements. We also apply these results to CAT(0) cubical complexes, and find new similarities between such a complex and an associated simplicial complex, the crossing complex.
The partition number $π(K)$ of a simplicial complex $K\subset 2^{[m]}$ is the minimum integer $ν$ such that for each partition $A_1\uplus\ldots\uplus A_ν= [m]$ of $[m]$ at least one of the sets $A_i$ is in $K$. A complex $K$ is $r$-unavoidable if $π(K)\leq r$. We say that a complex $K$ is globally $r$-non-embeddable in $\mathbb{R}^d$ if for each continuous map $f: | K| \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^d$ there exist $r$ vertex disjoint faces $σ_1,\ldots, σ_r$ of $| K|$ such that $f(σ_1)\cap\ldots\cap f(σ_r)\neq\emptyset$. Motivated by the problems of Tverberg-Van Kampen-Flores type we prove several resu…
It is known that there are finitely many simplicial complexes (up to isomorphism) with a given number of vertices. Translating to the language of $h$-vectors, there are finitely many simplicial complexes of bounded dimension with $h_1=k$ for any natural number $k$. In this paper we study the question at the other end of the $h$-vector: Are there only finitely many $(d-1)$-dimensional simplicial complexes with $h_d=k$ for any given $k$? The answer is no if we consider general complexes, but when focus on three cases coming from matroids: (i) independence complexes, (ii) broken circuit complexes…
For a simplicial complex $X$, the $d$-clique complex $Δ_d(X)$ is the simplicial complex having all subsets of vertices whose $(d + 1)$-subsets are contained by $X$ as its faces. We prove that if $p = n^α$, with $α< \max\{\frac{-1}{k-d +1},-\frac{d+1}{\binom{k}{d}}\}$ or $α> \frac{-1}{\binom{2k+2}{d}}$, then the $k$-th reduced homology group of the random $d$-clique complex $Δ_d(G_d(n,p))$ is asymptotically almost surely vanishing, and if $\frac{-1}{t} < α< \frac{-1}{t+1}$ where $t = (\frac{(d+1)(k+1)}{\binom{(d+1)(k+1)}{d+1}-(k+1)})^{-1}$, then the $(kd + d -1)$-st reduced homology group of $Δ…
Let $\mathbf{k}$ be the field $\mathbb{F}_p$ or the ring $\mathbb{Z}$. We study combinatorial and topological properties of the universal simplicial complexes $X(\mathbf{k}^n)$ and $K(\mathbf{k}^n)$ whose simplices are certain unimodular subsets of $\mathbf{k}^n$. As a main result we show that $X(\mathbf{k}^n)$, $K(\mathbf{k}^n)$ and the links of their simplicies are homotopy equivalent to a wedge of spheres specifying the exact number of spheres in the corresponding wedge decompositions. This is a generalisation of Davis and Januszkiewicz's result that $K(\mathbb{Z}^n)$ and $K(\mathbb{F}_2^n)…
As part of various obstruction theories, non-trivial Massey products have been studied in symplectic and complex geometry, commutative algebra and topology for a long time. We introduce a general approach to constructing non-trivial Massey products in the cohomology of moment-angle complexes, using homotopy theoretical and combinatorial methods. Our approach sets a unifying way of constructing higher Massey products of arbitrary cohomological classes and generalises all existing examples of non-trivial Massey products in moment-angle complexes. As a result, we obtain explicit constructions of …
We prove that if a simplicial complex is shellable, then the intersection lattice for the corresponding diagonal arrangement is homotopy equivalent to a wedge of spheres. Furthermore, we describe precisely the spheres in the wedge, based on the data of shelling. Also, we give some examples of diagonal arrangements where the complement is K(π,1), coming from rank 3 matroids.
We introduce new methods for understanding the topology of $\Hom$ complexes (spaces of homomorphisms between two graphs), mostly in the context of group actions on graphs and posets. We view $\Hom(T,-)$ and $\Hom(-,G)$ as functors from graphs to posets, and introduce a functor $(-)^1$ from posets to graphs obtained by taking atoms as vertices. Our main structural results establish useful interpretations of the equivariant homotopy type of $\Hom$ complexes in terms of spaces of equivariant poset maps and $Γ$-twisted products of spaces. When $P = F(X)$ is the face poset of a simplicial complex $…
We examine the topology of the clique complexes of the graphs of weakly and strongly separated subsets of the set $[n]=\{1,2,...,n\}$, which, after deleting all cone points, we denote by $\hatΔ_{ws}(n)$ and $\hatΔ_{ss}(n)$, respectively. In particular, we find that $\hatΔ_{ws}(n)$ is contractible for $n\geq4$, while $\hatΔ_{ss}(n)$ is homotopy equivalent to a sphere of dimension $n-3$. We also show that our homotopy equivalences are equivariant with respect to the group generated by two particular symmetries of $\hatΔ_{ws}(n)$ and $\hatΔ_{ss}(n)$: one induced by the set complementation action …
This is a glossary of notions and methods related with the topological theory of collections of affine planes, including braid groups, configuration spaces, order complexes, stratified Morse theory, simplicial resolutions, complexes of graphs, Orlik--Solomon rings, Salvetti complex, matroids, Spanier--Whitehead duality, twisted homology groups, monodromy theory and multidimensional hypergeometric functions. The emphasis on the most geometrical explanation is done; applications and analogies in the differential topology are outlined.
The augmented Bergman complex of a matroid is a simplicial complex introduced recently in work of Braden, Huh, Matherne, Proudfoot and Wang. It may be viewed as a hybrid of two well-studied pure shellable simplicial complexes associated to matroids: the independent set complex and Bergman complex. It is shown here that the augmented Bergman complex is also shellable, via two different families of shelling orders. Furthermore, comparing the description of its homotopy type induced from the two shellings re-interprets a known convolution formula counting bases of the matroid. The representation …
We use the topology of simplicial complexes to model political structures following [1]. Simplicial complexes are a natural tool to encode interactions in the structures since a simplex can be used to represent a subset of compatible agents. We translate the wedge, cone, and suspension operations into the language of political structures and show how these constructions correspond to merging structures and introducing mediators. We introduce the notions of the viability of an agent and the stability of a political system and examine their interplay with the simplicial complex topology, casting…
In this paper we consider a family of simplicial complexes, which we call the view complexes. Our choice of objects of study is motivated by theoretical distributed computing, since the view complex is a key simplicial construction used for protocol complexes in the snapshot computational model. We show that the view complex $\view$ can be collapsed to the well-known complex $χ(Δ^n)$, called standard chromatic subdivision of a simplex, and that $χ(Δ^n)$ is itself collapsible. Furthermore, we show that the collapses can be performed simultaneously in entire orbits of the natural symmetric group…
We develop a tighter implementation of basic PL topology, which keeps track of some combinatorial structure beyond PL homeomorphism type. With this technique we clarify some aspects of PL transversality and give combinatorial proofs of a number of known results. New results include a combinatorial characterization of collapsible polyhedra in terms of constructible posets (generalizing face posets of constructible simplicial complexes in the sense of Hochster). The relevant constructible posets are also characterized in terms of Reading's zipping of posets, which is a variation of edge contract…
