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 theory centres around the construction that assigns to each simplicial complex $K$ with $m$ vertices a $T^m$-space $\zk$ with a special bigraded cellular decomposition. In the framework of this theory, the well-known non-singular toric varieties arise as orbit spaces of maximally free actions of subtori on moment-angle complexes corresponding to simplicial spheres. We express different invariants of simplicial complexes and related combinatorial-geometrical objects in terms of the bigraded cohomology rings of the corresponding moment-angle complexes. Finally, we show that the new relationships between combinatorics, geometry and topology result in solutions to some well-known topological problems.
We construct a model for cohomology of a space $X$ equipped with a torus $T$ action, whose homotopy orbit space $X_{T}$ is formal. This model represents Koszul complex of its equivariant cohomology. Studying homological properties of modules over polynomial ring we derive new bounds on homological rank (dimension of cohomology ring) of $X$ equipped with almost free torus action. We give a proof of toral rank conjecture for spaces with formal quotient in the case of torus dimension $\le5$.
We prove that the moduli space of the pseudo holomorphic curves in the A-model on a symplectic torus is homeomorphic to a moduli space of Feynman diagrams in the configuration space of the morphisms in the B-model on the corresponding elliptic curve. These moduli spaces determine the $A_{\infty}$ structure of the both models.
We review a class of problems on the borders of topology of torus actions, commutative homological algebra and combinatorial geometry, which is currently being investigated by Victor Buchstaber and the author. The text builds on the lectures delivered on the transformation group courses in Osaka City University and Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. We start with discussing several well-known results and problems on combinatorial geometry of polytopes and simplicial complexes, and then move gradually towards investigating the combinatorial structures associated with spaces acted on by the toru…
A connected combinatorial 2-manifold is called degree-regular if each of its vertices have the same degree. A connected combinatorial 2-manifold is called weakly regular if it has a vertex-transitive automorphism group. Clearly, a weakly regular combinatorial 2-manifold is degree-regular and a degree-regular combinatorial 2-manifold of Euler characteristic - 2 must contain 12 vertices. In 1982, McMullen et al. constructed a 12-vertex geometrically realized triangulation of the double-torus in $\RR^3$. As an abstract simplicial complex, this triangulation is a weakly regular combinatorial 2-man…
In this paper we introduce the notion of a $d$-dimensional cycle which is a homological generalization of the idea of a graph cycle to higher dimensions. We examine both the combinatorial and homological properties of this structure and use these results to describe the relationship between the combinatorial structure of a simplicial complex and its simplicial homology. In particular, we show that over any field of characteristic 2 the existence of non-zero $d$-dimensional homology corresponds exactly to the presence of a $d$-dimensional cycle in the simplicial complex. We also show that $d$-d…
We consider a sheaf of exterior algebras on a simplicial poset $S$ and introduce a notion of homological characteristic function. Two natural objects are associated with these data: a graded sheaf $\mathcal{I}$ and a graded cosheaf $\widehatΠ$. When $S$ is a homology manifold, we prove the isomorphism $H^{n-1-p}(S;\mathcal{I})\cong H_{p}(S;\widehatΠ)$ which can be considered as an extension of the Poincare duality. In general, there is a spectral sequence $E^2_{p,q}\cong H^{n-1-p}(S;\mathcal{U}_{n-1+q}\otimes \mathcal{I})\Rightarrow H_{p+q}(S;\widehatΠ)$, where $\mathcal{U}_*$ is the local hom…
For several important classes of manifolds acted on by the torus, the information about the action can be encoded combinatorially by a regular n-valent graph with vector labels on its edges, which we refer to as the torus graph. By analogy with the GKM-graphs, we introduce the notion of equivariant cohomology of a torus graph, and show that it is isomorphic to the face ring of the associated simplicial poset. This extends a series of previous results on the equivariant cohomology of torus manifolds. As a primary combinatorial application, we show that a simplicial poset is Cohen-Macaulay if it…
Homological algebra of modules over posets is developed, as closely parallel as possible to that of finitely generated modules over noetherian commutative rings, in the direction of finite presentations and resolutions. Centrally at issue is how to define finiteness to replace the noetherian hypothesis which fails. The tameness condition introduced for this purpose captures finiteness for variation in families of vector spaces indexed by posets in a way that is characterized equivalently by distinct topological, algebraic, combinatorial, and homological manifestations. Tameness serves both the…
This thesis proposes a combinatorial generalization of a nilpotent operator on a vector space. The resulting object is highly natural, with basic connections to a variety of fields in pure mathematics, engineering, and the sciences. For the purpose of exposition we focus the discussion of applications on homological algebra and computation, with additional remarks in lattice theory, linear algebra, and abelian categories. For motivation, we recall that the methods of algebraic topology have driven remarkable progress in the qualitative study of large, noisy bodies of data over the past 15 year…
We introduce the notion of a multi-fan. It is a generalization of that of a fan in the theory of toric variety in algebraic geometry. Roughly speaking a toric variety is an algebraic variety with an action of algebraic torus of the same dimension as that of the variety, and a fan is a combinatorial object associated with the toric variety. Algebro-geometric properties of the toric variety can be described in terms of the associated fan. We develop a combinatorial theory of multi-fans and define ``topological invariants'' of a multi-fan. A smooth manifold with an action of a compact torus of ha…
We consider the orbit type filtration on a manifold $X$ with locally standard action of a compact torus and the corresponding homological spectral sequence $(E_X)^r_{*,*}$. If all proper faces of the orbit space $Q=X/T$ are acyclic, and the free part of the action is trivial, this spectral sequence can be described in full. The ranks of diagonal terms are equal to the $h'$-numbers of the Buchsbaum simplicial poset $S_Q$ dual to $Q$. Betti numbers of $X$ depend only on the orbit space $Q$ but not on the characteristic function. If $X$ is a slightly different object, namely the model space $X=(P…
We investigate combinatorial dynamical systems on simplicial complexes considered as {\em finite topological spaces}. Such systems arise in a natural way from sampling dynamics and may be used to reconstruct some features of the dynamics directly from the sample. We study the homological persistence of {\em Morse decompositions} of such systems, an important descriptor of the dynamics, as a tool for validating the reconstruction. Our framework can be viewed as a step toward extending the classical persistence theory to "vector cloud" data. We present experimental results on two numerical examp…
In this paper we study the homology of a random Cech complex generated by a homogeneous Poisson process in a compact Riemannian manifold M. In particular, we focus on the phase transition for "homological connectivity" where the homology of the complex becomes isomorphic to that of M. The results presented in this paper are an important generalization of [7], from the flat torus to general compact Riemannian manifolds. In addition to proving the statements related to homological connectivity, the methods we develop in this paper can be used as a framework for translating results for random geo…
A quasitoric manifold is a smooth 2n-manifold M^{2n} with an action of the compact torus T^n such that the action is locally isomorphic to the standard action of T^n on C^n and the orbit space is diffeomorphic, as manifold with corners, to a simple polytope P^n. The name refers to the fact that topological and combinatorial properties of quasitoric manifolds are similar to that of non-singular algebraic toric varieties (or toric manifolds). Unlike toric varieties, quasitoric manifolds may fail to be complex; however, they always admit a stably (or weakly almost) complex structure, and their co…
This paper studies combinatorial properties of the 'complex of planar injective words', a chain complex of modules over the Temperley-Lieb algebra that arose in our work on homological stability. Despite being a linear rather than a discrete object, our chain complex nevertheless exhibits interesting combinatorial properties. We show that the Euler characteristic of this complex is the n-th Fine number. We obtain an alternating sum formula for the representation given by its top-dimensional homology module and, under further restrictions on the ground ring, we decompose this module in terms of…
The goal of this paper is to generalize some of the existing toolkit of combinatorial algebraic topology in order to study the homology of abstract chain complexes. We define shellability of chain complexes in a similar way as for cell complexes and introduce the notion of regular chain complexes. In the case of chain complexes coming from simplicial complexes we recover the classical notions but, in contrast to the topological case, in the abstract setting shellings turn out to be a weaker homological invariant. In particular, we study special chain complexes, which are cones, and a class of …
