We introduce WI-posets as intermediate objects in the study of Z_2-homotopy types of graph complexes. It turns out that (almost) all graph complexes associated to a graph can be viewed as avatars of the same object, as long as their Z_2-homotopy types are concerned. Among the applications are a proof that each finite, free Z_2-complex is a graph complex and an evaluation of Z_2-homotopy types of complexes Ind(C_n) of independence sets in a cycle C_n. The main tools used in the paper are Quillen fiber theorem and Bredon criterion for Z_2-equivalence of Z_2-complexes.
We introduce and study additive posets. We show that the top homology group (with coefficients in Z/2Z) of a finite dimensional CW-complex carries a structure of an additive poset invariant under subdivisions. Applications to CW-complexes and graphs are discussed.
We generalize the concept of combinatorial nested set complexes to posets and exhibit the topological relationship between the arising nested set complexes and the order complex of the underlying poset. In particular, a sufficient condition is given so that this relationship is actually a subdivision. We use the results to generalize the proof method of Čukić and Delucchi, so far restricted to semilattices, for a result of Björner, Paffenholz, Sjöstrand and Ziegler on the Bier construction on posets.
We apply the homomorphism complex construction to partially ordered sets, introducing a new topological construction based on the set of maximal chains in a graded poset. Our primary objects of study are distributive lattices, with special emphasis on finite products of chains. For the special case of a Boolean algebra, we observe that the corresponding homomorphism complex is isomorphic to the subcomplex of cubical cells in a permutahedron. Thus, this work can be interpreted as a generalization of the study of these complexes. We provide a detailed investigation when our poset is a product of…
We establish an upper bound on the cardinality of a minimal generating set for the fundamental group of a large family of connected, balanced simplicial complexes and, more generally, simplicial posets.
An affine monoid is an additive monoid which is cancellative, pointed and finitely generated. An affine monoid $Λ$ has the partial order defined by $λ\le λ+ μ$. The Frobenius complex is the order complex of an open interval of $Λ$ with respect to this partial order. The reduced homology of the Frobenius complex is related to the torsion group of the monoid algebra $K[Λ]$. In this paper, we pay attention to homotopy types of Frobenius complexes, and we express the homotopy types of the Frobenius complexes of $Λ$ in terms of those of $Λ_1$ and $Λ_2$ when $Λ$ is an affine monoid obtained by gluin…
We introduce a version of discrete Morse theory for posets. This theory studies the topology of the order complexes K(X) of h-regular posets X from the critical points of admissible matchings on X. Our approach is related to R. Forman's discrete Morse theory for CW-complexes and generalizes Forman and Chari's results on the face posets of regular CW-complexes. We also introduce a homological variant of the theory that can be used to study the topology of triangulable homology manifolds by means of their order triangulations.
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 propose some conditions on a poset that produce a small chain complex for its homology. This allows to compare simplicial complexes and Quillen's complexes under the same prism. It turns out they differ in the existence or not of free faces in an acyclic complex.
The classes of sequentially Cohen-Macaulay and sequentially homotopy Cohen-Macaulay complexes and posets are studied. First, some different versions of the definitions are discussed and the homotopy type is determined. Second, it is shown how various constructions, such as join, product and rank-selection preserve these properties. Third, a characterization of sequential Cohen-Macaulayness for posets is given. Finally, in an appendix we outline connections with ring-theory and survey some uses of sequential Cohen-Macaulayness in commutative algebra.
We show that the order complex of the poset of all cosets of all proper subgroups of a finite group $G$ is never $\mathbb{F}_{2}$-acyclic and therefore never contractible. This settles a question of K. S. Brown.
It is proved that every discrete Morse function in the sense of Forman on a finite regular CW complex can be represented by a polyhedral Morse function in the sense of Banchoff on an appropriate embedding in Euclidean space of the barycentric subdivision of the CW complex; such a representation preserves critical points. The proof is stated in terms of discrete Morse functions on a class of posets that is slightly broader than the class of face posets of finite regular CW complexes.
We study dismantlability in graphs. In order to compare this notion to similar operations in posets (partially ordered sets) or in simplicial complexes, we prove that a graph G dismants on a subgraph H if and only if H is a strong deformation retract of G. Then, by looking at a triangle relating graphs, posets and simplicial complexes, we get a precise correspondence of the various notions of dismantlability in each framework. As an application, we study the link between the graph of morphisms from a graph G to a graph H and the polyhedral complex Hom(G,H); this gives a more precise statement …
The socle of a graded Buchsbaum module is studied and is related to its local cohomology modules. This algebraic result is then applied to face enumeration of Buchsbaum simplicial complexes and posets. In particular, new necessary conditions on face numbers and Betti numbers of such complexes and posets are established. These conditions are used to settle in the affirmative Kühnel's conjecture for the maximum value of the Euler characteristic of a $2k$-dimensional simplicial manifold on $n$ vertices as well as Kalai's conjecture providing a lower bound on the number of edges of a simplicial ma…
In this paper we give convex-ear decompositions for the order complexes of several classes of posets, namely supersolvable lattices with non-zero Mobius functions and rank-selected subposets of such lattices, rank-selected geometric lattices, and rank-selected face posets of shellable complexes which do not include the top rank. These decompositions give us many new inequalities for the h-vectors of these complexes. In addition, our decomposition of rank-selected face posets of shellable complexes allows us to prove inequalities for the flag h-vector of face posets of Cohen-Macaulay complexes.
The Scarf complex for lattices is well understood and utilized. In 2014, the author expanded the use of the term Scarf complex to encompass an infinite set in $\mathbb{Z}^n$ that was generated via an action of a lattice $Λ\in\mathbb{Z}^n$ upon a finite subset $A\subset\mathbb{N}^n$. This paper aims to further generalize the use of Scarf complex by removing the integer lattice completely while maintaining the essence of the Scarf complex.
We develop Morse-Bott theory on posets, generalizing both discrete Morse-Bott theory for regular complexes and Morse theory on posets. Moreover, we prove a Lusternik-Schnirelmann theorem for general matchings on posets, in particular, for Morse-Bott functions.
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 introduce a Morse theory for posets of Bestvina-Brady type combining matchings and height functions. This theory generalizes Forman's discrete Morse theory for regular CW-complexes and extends previous results on Morse theory for $h$-regular posets to all finite posets. We also develop a relative version of Morse theory which allows us to compare the topology of a poset with that of a given subposet.
A theorem of McCord of 1966 and Quillen's Theorem A of 1973 provide sufficient conditions for a map between two posets to be a homotopy equivalence at the level of complexes. We give an alternative elementary proof of this result and we deduce also a stronger statement: under the hypotheses of the theorem, the map is not only a homotopy equivalence but a simple homotopy equivalence. This leads then to stronger formulations of the simplicial version of Quillen's Theorem A, the Nerve lemma and other known results.
We use a classical result of McCord and reduction methods of finite spaces to prove a generalization of Thomason's theorem on homotopy colimits over posets. In particular this allows us to characterize the homotopy colimits of diagrams of simplicial complexes in terms of the Grothendieck construction on the diagrams of their face posets. We also derive analogues of well known results on homotopy colimits in the combinatorial setting, including a cofinality theorem and a generalization of Quillen's Theorem A for posets.
Boij and Söderberg made a pair of conjectures, which were subsequently proven by Eisenbud and Schreyer and then extended by Boij and Söderberg, about the structure of Betti diagrams of Graded modules. In the theory, a particular family of posets, and their associated order complexes, play an integral role. We explore the structure of this family. In particular, we show the posets are bounded complete lattices and the order complexes are vertex-decomposable, hence Cohen-Macaulay and squarefree glicci.
For a discrete poset $\mathcal X$, McCord proved that the natural map $|{\mathcal X}|\to {\mathcal X}$, from the order complex to the poset with the Up topology, is a weak homotopy equivalence. Much later, uZivaljević defined the notion of order complex for a topological poset. For a large class of such topological posets we prove the analog of McCord's theorem, namely that the natural map from the order complex to the topological poset with the Up topology is a weak homotopy equivalence. An example is the Grassmann poset of proper non-zero linear subspaces of $\R^{n+1}$. Here, Vassiliev had c…
In this article we study the curvature properties of the order complex of a graded poset under a metric that we call the ``orthoscheme metric''. In addition to other results, we characterize which rank 4 posets have CAT(0) orthoscheme complexes and by applying this theorem to standard posets and complexes associated with four-generator Artin groups, we are able to show that the 5-string braid group is the fundamental group of a compact nonpositively curved space.
We extend the notion of face rings of simplicial complexes and simplicial posets to the case of finite-length (possibly infinite) simplicial posets with a group action. The action on the complex induces an action on the face ring, and we prove that the ring of invariants is isomorphic to the face ring of the quotient simplicial poset under a mild condition on the group action. We also identify a class of actions on simplicial complexes that preserve the homotopical Cohen-Macaulay property under quotients. When the acted-upon poset is the independence complex of a semimatroid, the $h$-polynomia…
Hepworth, Willerton, Leinster and Shulman introduced the magnitude homology groups for enriched categories, in particular, for metric spaces. The purpose of this paper is to describe the magnitude homology group of a metric space in terms of order complexes of posets. In a metric space, an interval (the set of points between two chosen points) has a natural poset structure, which is called the interval poset. Under additional assumptions on sizes of $4$-cuts, we show that the magnitude chain complex can be constructed using tensor products, direct sums and degree shifts from order complexes of…
We study two constructions related to the intervals of finite posets. The first one is a poset. The second one is more complicated. Loosely speaking it can be seen as a poset with some extra zero-relations. As main result, we show that these two constructions are equivalent at the level of derived categories.
The $P$-partition generating function of a (naturally labeled) poset $P$ is a quasisymmetric function enumerating order-preserving maps from $P$ to $\mathbb{Z}^+$. Using the Hopf algebra of posets, we give necessary conditions for two posets to have the same generating function. In particular, we show that they must have the same number of antichains of each size, as well as the same shape (as defined by Greene). We also discuss which shapes guarantee uniqueness of the $P$-partition generating function and give a method of constructing pairs of non-isomorphic posets with the same generating fu…
Local to global machinery plays an important role in the study of simplicial complexes, since the seminal work of Garland [G] to our days. In this work we develop a local to global machinery for general posets. We show that the high dimensional expansion notions and many recent expansion results have a generalization to posets. Examples are fast convergence of high dimensional random walks generalizing [KO,AL], an equivalence with a global random walk definition, generalizing [DDFH] and a trickling down theorem, generalizing [O]. In particular, we show that some posets, such as the Grassmannia…
Let $\mathcal{P}$ be a poset on $[n]$, $\mathcal{I}(\mathcal{P})$ the set of order ideals of $\mathcal{P}$ and $E$ an equivalence relation on $\mathcal{I}(\mathcal{P})$. The concepts of the dual relation $E^*$ of an equivalence relation $E$, the $E$-weight (resp. $E^*$-weight) distribution of a linear poset code (resp. its dual poset code) and a MacWilliams-type equivalence relation are introduced. We give a characterization for a MacWilliams-type equivalence relation in terms of MacWilliams-type identities for a linear poset code. Three kinds of equivalence relations on $\mathcal{I}(\mathcal{…
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…
We introduce decomposition complexes of posets, which generalize order complexes. The main advantage of our construction is that decomposition complexes are closed under taking products. Other special instances of this theory include nested set complexes as well as Bergman complexes.
In recent years it has been noted that a number of combinatorial structures such as real and complex hyperplane arrangements, interval greedoids, matroids and oriented matroids have the structure of a finite monoid called a left regular band. Random walks on the monoid model a number of interesting Markov chains such as the Tsetlin library and riffle shuffle. The representation theory of left regular bands then comes into play and has had a major influence on both the combinatorics and the probability theory associated to such structures. In a recent paper, the authors established a close conn…
With any locally finite partially ordered set $K$ its incidence algebra $Ω(K)$ is associated. We shall consider algebras over fields with characteristic zero. In this case there is a correspondence $K \leftrightarrow Ω(K)$ such that the poset $K$ can be reconstructed from its incidence algebra up to an isomorphism -- due to Stanley theorem. In the meantime, a monotone mapping between two posets in general induces no homomorphism of their incidence algebras. In this paper I show that if the class of posets is confined to simplicial complexes then their incidence algebras acquire the structure o…
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 natural construction due to K. Ding yields Schubert varieties from Ferrers boards. The poset structure of the Schubert cells in these varieties is equal to the poset of maximal rook placements on the Ferrers board under the Bruhat order. We determine when two Ferrers boards have isomorphic rook posets. Equivalently, we give an exact categorization of when two Ding Schubert varieties have identical Schubert cell structures. This also produces a complete classification of isomorphism types of lower intervals of 312-avoiding permutations in the Bruhat order.
A fundamental question for simplicial complexes is to find the lowest dimensional Euclidean space in which they can be embedded. We investigate this question for order complexes of posets. We show that order complexes of thick geometric lattices as well as several classes of finite buildings, all of which are order complexes, are hard to embed. That means that such d-dimensional complexes require (2d + 1)-dimensional Euclidean space for an embedding. (This dimension is in general always sufficient for any d-complex.) We develop a method to show non-embeddability for general order complexes of …
We show that for two quivers without oriented cycles related by a BGP reflection, the posets of their cluster tilting objects are related by a simple combinatorial construction, which we call a flip-flop. We deduce that the posets of cluster tilting objects of derived equivalent path algebras of quivers without oriented cycles are universally derived equivalent. In particular, all Cambrian lattices corresponding to the various orientations of the same Dynkin diagram are universally derived equivalent.
Motivated by the graph associahedron KG, a polytope whose face poset is based on connected subgraphs of G, we consider the notion of associativity and tubes on posets. This leads to a new family of simple convex polytopes obtained by iterated truncations. These generalize graph associahedra and nestohedra, even encompassing notions of nestings on CW-complexes. However, these poset associahedra fall in a different category altogether than generalized permutohedra.
We analyze marked poset polytopes and generalize a result due to Hibi and Li, answering whether the marked chain polytope is unimodular equivalent to the marked order polytope. Both polytopes appear naturally in the representation theory of semi-simple Lie algebras, and hence we can give a necessary and sufficient condition on the marked poset such that the associated toric degenerations of the corresponding partial flag variety are isomorphic. We further show that the set of lattice points in such a marked poset polytope is the Minkowski sum of sets of lattice points for 0-1 polytopes. Moreov…
A finite poset X carries a natural structure of a topological space. Fix a field k, and denote by D(X) the bounded derived category of sheaves of finite dimensional k-vector spaces over X. Two posets X and Y are said to be derived equivalent if D(X) and D(Y) are equivalent as triangulated categories. We give explicit combinatorial properties of a poset which are invariant under derived equivalence, among them are the number of points, the Z-congruency class of the incidence matrix, and the Betti numbers. Then we construct, for any closed subset Y of X, a strongly exceptional collection in D(X)…
Forman introduced discrete Morse theory as a tool for studying CW complexes by essentially collapsing them onto smaller, simpler-to-understand complexes of critical cells in [Fo]. Chari reformulated discrete Morse theory for regular cell complexes in terms of acyclic matchings on face posets in [Ch]. This paper addresses two questions: (1) under what conditions may several gradient paths in a discrete Morse function simultaneously be reversed to cancel several pairs of critical cells, to further collapse the complex, and (2) how to use lexicographically first reduced expressions for permutatio…
By using only combinatorial data on two posets X and Y, we construct a set of so-called formulas. A formula produces simultaneously, for any abelian category A, a functor between the categories of complexes of diagrams over X and Y with values in A. This functor induces a triangulated functor between the corresponding derived categories. This allows us to prove, for pairs X, Y of posets sharing certain common underlying combinatorial structure, that for any abelian category A, regardless of its nature, the categories of diagrams over X and Y with values in A are derived equivalent.
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…
We give an explicit description of the poset of cells of Bergman complexes of Lattice Path Matroids and establish a criterion for its simpliciality, in terms of the shape of the bounding paths.
We study the equivalence relation on the set of acyclic orientations of an undirected graph G generated by source-to-sink conversions. These conversions arise in the contexts of admissible sequences in Coxeter theory, quiver representations, and asynchronous graph dynamical systems. To each equivalence class we associate a poset, characterize combinatorial properties of these posets, and in turn, the admissible sequences. This allows us to construct an explicit bijection from the equivalence classes over G to those over G' and G", the graphs obtained from G by edge deletion and edge contractio…
There is a canonical way to associate two simplicial complexes K, L to any relation $R\subset X\times Y$. Moreover, the geometric realizations of K and L are homotopy equivalent. This was studied in the fifties by C.H. Dowker. In this article we prove a Galois-type correspondence for relations $R\subset X\times Y$ when X is fixed and use these constructions to investigate finite posets (or equivalently, finite topological spaces) from a geometrical point of view. Given any poset $(X, \leq)$, we define the simplicial complexes K, L associated to the relation $\leq$. In many cases these polyhedr…
We introduce the notion of cylinder of a relation in the context of posets, extending the construction of the mapping cylinder. We establish a local-to-global result for relations, generalizing Quillen's Theorem A for order preserving maps, and derive novel formulations of the classical Nerve Theorem for posets and simplicial complexes, suitable for covers with not necessarily contractible intersections.
