Bounding the collapsibility number of simplicial complexes and graphs
Türker Bıyıkoğlu, Yusuf Civan
备注：
Theorems 4 and 22 are wrong as stated so that our justification of the primeness is flawed. The existence of the notion of a prime vertex in the non-flag setting remains open. We therefore withdraw the preprint
We introduce and study a new combinatorial invariant the theta-number $θ(X)$ of simplicial complexes, and prove that the inequality $\mathcal{C}(X)\leq θ(X)$ holds for every simplicial complex $X$, where $\mathcal{C}(X)$ denotes the collapsibility number of $X$. We display the advantages of working with the theta-number. Its purely combinatorial formulation enables us to verify the validity of the existing bounds on both Leray and collapsibility numbers as well as provide new bounds involving other parameters.
We show that the theta-number, collapsibility and Leray numbers of a vertex decomposable simplicial complex are all equal. Moreover, we prove that the theta-number of the independence complex of a graph $G$ is closely related to its induced matching number $im(G)$ as it happens to the Leray number of such complexes. We identify graph classes where they are equal, and otherwise provide upper bounds involving it. In particular, we prove that the theta-number is bounded from above by $2\sqrt{n\cdot im(G)}$ for every $n$-vertex graph $G$, and in the case of $2K_2$-free graphs, we lower this bound to $2\log n$. Furthermore, we verify that the theta-number is contraction minor monotone on the underlying graph.
Let $\mathcal{H}$ be a hypergraph of rank $r$. We show that the simplicial complex whose simplices are the hypergraphs $\mathcal{F}\subset\mathcal{H}$ with covering number at most $p$ is $\left(\binom{r+p}{r}-1\right)$-collapsible, and the simplicial complex whose simplices are the pairwise intersecting hypergraphs $\mathcal{F}\subset\mathcal{H}$ is $\frac{1}{2}\binom{2r}{r}$-collapsible.
Let Y be a random d-dimensional subcomplex of the (n-1)-dimensional simplex S obtained by starting with the full (d-1)-dimensional skeleton of S and then adding each d-simplex independently with probability p=c/n. We compute an explicit constant gamma_d=Theta(log d) so that for c < gamma_d such a random simplicial complex either collapses to a (d-1)-dimensional subcomplex or it contains the boundary of a (d+1)-simplex. We conjecture this bound to be sharp. In addition we show that there exists a constant gamma_d< c_d <d+1 such that for any c>c_d and a fixed field F, asymptotically almost surel…
A simplicial complex is d-collapsible if it can be reduced to an empty complex by repeatedly removing (collapsing) a face of dimension at most d-1 that is contained in a unique maximal face. We prove that the algorithmic question whether a given simplicial complex is d-collapsible is NP-complete for d greater or equal to 4 and polynomial time solvable for d at most 2. As an intermediate step, we prove that d-collapsibility can be recognized by the greedy algorithm for d at most 2, but the greedy algorithm does not work for d greater or equal 3. A simplicial complex is d-representable if it is …
The Dushnik-Miller dimension of a poset $\le$ is the minimal number $d$ of linear extensions $\le_1, \ldots , \le_d$ of $\le$ such that $\le$ is the intersection of $\le_1, \ldots , \le_d$. Supremum sections are simplicial complexes introduced by Scarf and are linked to the Dushnik-Miller as follows: the inclusion poset of a simplicial complex is of Dushnik-Miller dimension at most $d$ if and only if it is included in a supremum section coming from a representation of dimension $d$. Collapsibility is a topoligical property of simplicial complexes which has been introduced by Whitehead and whic…
Let $G$ be a graph on $V$. A vertex subset $S \subset V$ is called a cover of $G$ if its complement is an independent set, and $S$ is called a noncover if it is not a cover of $G$. A noncover complex $NC(G)$ of $G$ is the simplicial complex on $V$ whose faces are noncovers of $G$. The independence domination number $ iγ(G)$ of $G$ is the minimum integer $k$ such that every independent set of $G$ can be dominated by $k$ vertices. In this note, we prove that $NC(G)$ is $(|V|- iγ(G)-1)$-collapsible.
In this paper we determine the threshold for collapsibility in the probabilistic model $X_d(n,p)$ of $d$-dimensional simplicial complexes. A lower bound for this threshold $p=\frac{c_d}{n}$ was established in \cite{ALLM}. Here we show that this is indeed the correct threshold. Namely, for every $c>c_d$, a complex drawn from $X_d(n,\frac{c}{n})$ is asymptotically almost surely not collapsible.
A simplicial complex K is called d-representable if it is the nerve of a collection of convex sets in R^d; K is d-collapsible if it can be reduced to an empty complex by repeatedly removing a face of dimension at most d-1 that is contained in a unique maximal face; and K is d-Leray if every induced subcomplex of K has vanishing homology of dimension d and larger. It is known that d-representable implies d-collapsible implies d-Leray, and no two of these notions coincide for d greater or equal to 2. The famous Helly theorem and other important results in discrete geometry can be regarded as res…
We say that a pure simplicial complex ${\mathbf K}$ of dimension $d$ satisfies the removal-collapsibility condition if ${\mathbf K}$ is either empty or ${\mathbf K}$ becomes collapsible after removing $\tilde β_d ({\mathbf K}; {\mathbb Z}_2)$ facets, where $\tilde β_d ({\mathbf K}; {\mathbb Z}_2)$ denotes the $d$th reduced Betti number. In this paper, we show that if the link of each face of a pure simplicial complex ${\mathbf K}$ (including the link of the empty face which is the whole ${\mathbf K}$) satisfy the removal-collapsibility condition, then the second barycentric subdivision of ${\m…
We investigate one-point reduction methods of finite topological spaces. These methods allow one to study homotopy theory of cell complexes by means of elementary moves of their finite models. We also introduce the notion of h-regular CW-complex, generalizing the concept of regular CW-complex, and prove that the h-regular CW-complexes, which are a sort of combinatorial-up-to-homotopy objects, are modeled (up to homotopy) by their associated finite spaces. This is accomplished by generalizing a classical result of McCord on simplicial complexes.
We introduce the theory of strong homotopy types of simplicial complexes. Similarly to classical simple homotopy theory, the strong homotopy types can be described by elementary moves. An elementary move in this setting is called a strong collapse and it is a particular kind of simplicial collapse. The advantage of using strong collapses is the existence and uniqueness of cores and their relationship with the nerves of the complexes. From this theory we derive new results for studying simplicial collapsibility with a different point of view. We analyze vertex-transitive simplicial $G$-actions …
We investigate the collapsibility of systolic finite simplicial complexes of arbitrary dimension. The main tool we use in the proof is discrete Morse theory. We shall consider a convex subcomplex of the complex and project any simplex of the complex onto a ball around this convex subcomplex. These projections will induce a convenient gradient matching on the complex. Besides we analyze the combinatorial structure of both CAT(0) and systolic locally finite simplicial complexes of arbitrary dimensions. We will show that both such complexes possess an arborescent structure. Along the way we make …
We present extremal constructions connected with the property of simplicial collapsibility. (1) For each $d \ge 2$, there are collapsible (and shellable) simplicial $d$-complexes with only one free face. Also, there are non-evasive $d$-complexes with only two free faces. (Both results are optimal in all dimensions.) (2) Optimal discrete Morse vectors need not be unique. We explicitly construct a contractible, but non-collapsible $3$-dimensional simplicial complex with face vector $f=(106,596,1064,573)$ that admits two distinct optimal discrete Morse vectors, $(1,1,1,0)$ and $(1,0,1,1)$. Indeed…
We present a generalization of Brouwer's conjectural family of inequalities -- a popular family of inequalities in spectral graph theory bounding the partial sum of the Laplacian eigenvalues of graphs -- for the case of abstract simplicial complexes of any dimension. We prove that this family of inequalities holds for shifted simplicial complexes, which generalize threshold graphs, and give tighter bounds (linear in the dimension of the complexes) for simplicial trees. We prove that the conjecture holds for the the first, second, and last partial sums for all simplicial complexes, generalizing…
Hypertrees and noncrossing trees are well-established objects in the combinatorics literature, but the hybrid notion of a noncrossing hypertree has received less attention. In this article I investigate the poset of noncrossing hypertrees as an induced subposet of the hypertree poset. Its dual is the face poset of a simplicial complex, one that can be identified with a generalized cluster complex of type $A$. The first main result is that this noncrossing hypertree complex is homeomorphic to a piecewise spherical complex associated with the noncrossing partition lattice and thus it has a natur…
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 show that very weak topological assumptions are enough to ensure the existence of a Helly-type theorem. More precisely, we show that for any non-negative integers $b$ and $d$ there exists an integer $h(b,d)$ such that the following holds. If $\mathcal F$ is a finite family of subsets of $\mathbb R^d$ such that $\tildeβ_i\left(\bigcap\mathcal G\right) \le b$ for any $\mathcal G \subsetneq \mathcal F$ and every $0 \le i \le \lceil d/2 \rceil-1$ then $\mathcal F$ has Helly number at most $h(b,d)$. Here $\tildeβ_i$ denotes the reduced $\mathbb Z_2$-Betti numbers (with singular homology). These …
