Cohomology of open torus manifolds

The notion of an open torus manifold is introduced. A compact open torus manifold is a torus manifold introduced earlier. It is shown that the equivariant cohomology ring of an open torus manifold M is the face ring of a simplicial poset when every face of the orbit space Q is acyclic. This result extends an earlier result by Masuda and Panov, and the proof here is more direct. Reisner’s theorem is then applied to our setting, and a necessary and sufficient condition is given for the equivariant cohomology ring of M to be Cohen-Macaulay in terms of the orbit space Q.     

Shellable graphs and sequentially Cohen-Macaulay bipartite graphs

Associated to a simple undirected graph G is a simplicial complex ΔG whose faces correspond to the independent sets of G. We call a graph G shellable if ΔG is a shellable simplicial complex in the non-pure sense of Björner-Wachs. We are then interested in determining what families of graphs have the property that G is shellable. We show that all chordal graphs are shellable. Furthermore, we classify all the shellable bipartite graphs; they are precisely the sequentially Cohen-Macaulay bipartite graphs. We also give a recursive procedure to verify if a bipartite graph is shellable. Because shellable implies that the associated Stanley-Reisner ring is sequentially Cohen-Macaulay, our results complement and extend recent work on the problem of determining when the edge ideal of a graph is (sequentially) Cohen-Macaulay. We also give a new proof for a result of Faridi on the sequentially Cohen-Macaulayness of simplicial forests.     

Torus Actions, Equivariant Moment-Angle Complexes, and Coordinate Subspace Arrangements

We show that the cohomology algebra of the complement of a coordinate subspace arrangement in the m-dimensional complex space is isomorphic to the cohomology algebra of the StanleyReisner face ring of a certain simplicial complex on m vertices. (The face ring is regarded as a module over the polynomial ring on m generators.) After that we calculate the latter cohomology algebra by means of the standard Koszul resolution of a polynomial ring. To prove these facts, we construct a homotopy equivalence (equivariant with respect to the torus action) between the complement of a coordinate subspace arrangement and the moment-angle complex defined by a simplicial complex. The moment-angle complex is a certain subset of the unit polydisk in the m-dimensional complex space invariant with respect to the action of the m-dimensional torus. This complex is a smooth manifold provided that the simplicial complex is a simplicial sphere; otherwise, the complex has a more complicated structure. Then we investigate the equivariant topology of the moment-angle complex and apply the EilenbergMoore spectral sequence. We also relate our results with well-known facts in the theory of toric varieties and symplectic geometry. Bibliography: 23 titles.     

Equivariant Cobordism of Torus Orbifolds

Torus orbifolds are topological generalizations of symplectic toric orbifolds.The authours give a construction of smooth orbifolds with torus actions whose boundary is a disjoint union of torus orbifolds using a toric topological method. As a result, they show that any orientable locally standard torus orbifold is equivariantly cobordant to some copies of orbifold complex projective spaces. They also discuss some further equivariant cobordism results including the cases when torus orbifolds are actually torus manifolds.     

On face numbers of manifolds with symmetry

Necessary conditions on the face numbers of Cohen-Macaulay simplicial complexes admitting a proper action of the cyclic group of a prime order are given. This result is extended further to necessary conditions on the face numbers and the Betti numbers of Buchsbaum simplicial complexes with a proper -action. Adin's upper bounds on the face numbers of Cohen-Macaulay complexes with symmetry are shown to hold for all (d−1)-dimensional Buchsbaum complexes with symmetry on n?3d−2 vertices. A generalization of Kühnel's conjecture on the Euler characteristic of 2k-dimensional manifolds and Sparla's analog of this conjecture for centrally symmetric 2k-manifolds are verified for all 2k-manifolds on n?6k+3 vertices. Connections to the Upper Bound Theorem are discussed and its new version for centrally symmetric manifolds is established.     

Equivariant cohomology of K-contact manifolds

We investigate the equivariant cohomology of the natural torus action on a K-contact manifold and its relation to the topology of the Reeb flow. Using the contact moment map, we show that the equivariant cohomology of this action is Cohen–Macaulay, the natural substitute of equivariant formality for torus actions without fixed points. As a consequence, generic components of the contact moment map are perfect Morse-Bott functions for the basic cohomology of the orbit foliation ${{\mathcal F}}$ of the Reeb flow. Assuming that the closed Reeb orbits are isolated, we show that the basic cohomology of ${{\mathcal F}}$ vanishes in odd degrees, and that its dimension equals the number of closed Reeb orbits. We characterize K-contact manifolds with minimal number of closed Reeb orbits as real cohomology spheres. We also prove a GKM-type theorem for K-contact manifolds which allows to calculate the equivariant cohomology algebra under the nonisolated GKM condition.     

Torsion in equivariant cohomology and Cohen-Macaulay G-actions

We show that the well-known fact that the equivariant cohomology (with real coefficients) of a torus action is a torsion-free module if and only if the map induced by the inclusion of the fixed point set is injective generalises to actions of arbitrary compact connected Lie groups if one replaces the fixed point set by the set of points with isotropy rank equal to the rank of the acting group. This is true essentially because the action on this set is always equivariantly formal. In case this set is empty we show that the induced action on the set of points with highest occuring isotropy rank is Cohen-Macaulay. It turns out that just as equivariant formality of an action is equivalent to equivariant formality of the action of a maximal torus, the same holds true for equivariant injectivity and the Cohen-Macaulay property. In addition, we find a topological criterion for equivariant injectivity in terms of orbit spaces.     

Generating even triangulations on the torus

A triangulation on a surface $\mathbf{F}$ is a fixed embedding of a loopless graph on $\mathbf{F}$ with each face bounded by a cycle of length three. A triangulation is even if each vertex has even degree. We define two reductions for even triangulations on surfaces, called the 4-contraction and the twin-contraction. In this paper, we first determine the complete list of minimal 3-connected even triangulations on the torus with respect to these two reductions. Secondly, allowing a vertex of degree 2 and replacing the twin-contraction with another reduction, called the 2-contraction, we establish the list for all minimal even triangulations on the torus. We also describe several applications of the lists for solving problems on even triangulations.     

Bounds on the forcing numbers of bipartite graphs

The forcing number of a perfect matching M of a graph G is the cardinality of the smallest subset of M that is contained in no other perfect matching of G. In this paper, we demonstrate several techniques to produce upper bounds on the forcing number of bipartite graphs. We present a simple method of showing that the maximum forcing number on the 2m×2n rectangle is mn, and show that the maximum forcing number on the 2m×2n torus is also mn. Further, we investigate the lower bounds on the forcing number and determine the conditions under which a previously formulated lower bound is sharp; we provide an example of a family of graphs for which it is arbitrarily weak.     

On a conjecture by Kalai

We show that monomial ideals generated in degree two satisfy a conjecture by Eisenbud, Green and Harris. In particular, we give a partial answer to a conjecture of Kalai by proving that h-vectors of flag Cohen-Macaulay simplicial complexes are h-vectors of Cohen-Macaulay balanced simplicial complexes.     

Whiskers and sequentially Cohen-Macaulay graphs

We investigate how to modify a simple graph G combinatorially to obtain a sequentially Cohen-Macaulay graph. We focus on adding configurations of whiskers to G, where to add a whisker one adds a new vertex and an edge connecting this vertex to an existing vertex of G. We give various sufficient conditions and necessary conditions on a subset S of the vertices of G so that the graph G∪W(S), obtained from G by adding a whisker to each vertex in S, is a sequentially Cohen-Macaulay graph. For instance, we show that if S is a vertex cover of G, then G∪W(S) is a sequentially Cohen-Macaulay graph. On the other hand, we show that if G?S is not sequentially Cohen-Macaulay, then G∪W(S) is not a sequentially Cohen-Macaulay graph. Our work is inspired by and generalizes a result of Villarreal on the use of whiskers to get Cohen-Macaulay graphs.     

Equivariant Lefschetz maps for simplicial complexes and smooth manifolds

Let X be a locally compact space with a continuous proper action of a locally compact group G. Assuming that X satisfies a certain kind of duality in equivariant bivariant Kasparov theory, we can enrich the classical construction of Lefschetz numbers for self-maps to an equivariant K-homology class. We compute the Lefschetz invariants for self-maps of finite-dimensional simplicial complexes and smooth manifolds. The resulting invariants are independent of the extra structure used to compute them. Since smooth manifolds can be triangulated, we get two formulas for the same Lefschetz invariant in this case. The resulting identity is closely related to the equivariant Lefschetz Fixed Point Theorem of Lück and Rosenberg.     

Geometry of compact complex manifolds with maximal torus action

We study the geometry of compact complex manifolds M equipped with a maximal action of a torus T = (S ¹) ^k . We present two equivalent constructions that allow one to build any such manifold on the basis of special combinatorial data given by a simplicial fan Σ and a complex subgroup H ? T _? = (?*) ^k . On every manifold M we define a canonical holomorphic foliation F and, under additional restrictions on the combinatorial data, construct a transverse Kähler form ω _F . As an application of these constructions, we extend some results on the geometry of moment-angle manifolds to the case of manifolds M.     

Real quadrics in C n , complex manifolds and convex polytopes

In this paper, we investigate the topology of a class of non-Kähler compact complex manifolds generalizing that of Hopf and Calabi-Eckmann manifolds. These manifolds are diffeomorphic to special systems of real quadrics C ⁿ which are invariant with respect to the natural action of the real torus (S ¹) ⁿ onto C ⁿ . The quotient space is a simple convex polytope. The problem reduces thus to the study of the topology of certain real algebraic sets and can be handled using combinatorial results on convex polytopes. We prove that the homology groups of these compact complex manifolds can have arbitrary amount of torsion so that their topology is extremely rich. We also resolve an associated wall-crossing problem by introducing holomorphic equivariant elementary surgeries related to some transformations of the simple convex polytope. Finally, as a nice consequence, we obtain that affine non-Kähler compact complex manifolds can have arbitrary amount of torsion in their homology groups, contrasting with the Kähler situation.     

Torus actions,fixed-point formulas,elliptic genera and positive curvature

We study fixed points of smooth torus actions on closed manifolds using fixed point formulas and equivariant elliptic genera. We also give applications to positively curved Riemannian manifolds with symmetry.     

On r-stacked triangulated manifolds

The notion of r-stackedness for simplicial polytopes was introduced by McMullen and Walkup in 1971 as a generalization of stacked polytopes. In this paper, we define the r-stackedness for triangulated homology manifolds and study its basic properties. In addition, we find a new necessary condition for face vectors of triangulated manifolds when all the vertex links are polytopal.     

Erd?s-Ko-Rado theorems for simplicial complexes

A recent framework for generalizing the Erd?s-Ko-Rado theorem, due to Holroyd, Spencer, and Talbot, defines the Erd?s-Ko-Rado property for a graph in terms of the graph's independent sets. Since the family of all independent sets of a graph forms a simplicial complex, it is natural to further generalize the Erd?s-Ko-Rado property to an arbitrary simplicial complex. An advantage of working in simplicial complexes is the availability of algebraic shifting, a powerful shifting (compression) technique, which we use to verify a conjecture of Holroyd and Talbot in the case of sequentially Cohen-Macaulay near-cones.     

Twisted Equivariant Matter

We show how general principles of symmetry in quantum mechanics lead to twisted notions of a group representation. This framework generalizes both the classical threefold way of real/complex/ quaternionic representations as well as a corresponding tenfold way which has appeared in condensed matter and nuclear physics. We establish a foundation for discussing continuous families of quantum systems. Having done so, topological phases of quantum systems can be defined as deformation classes of continuous families of gapped Hamiltonians. For free particles, there is an additional algebraic structure on the deformation classes leading naturally to notions of twisted equivariant K-theory. In systems with a lattice of translational symmetries, we show that there is a canonical twisting of the equivariant K-theory of the Brillouin torus. We give precise mathematical definitions of two invariants of the topological phases which have played an important role in the study of topological insulators. Twisted equivariant K-theory provides a finer classification of topological insulators than has been previously available.