Cochain algebra on manifolds and convergence under refinement

In this paper we develop several algebraic structures on the simplicial cochains of a triangulated manifold and prove they converge to their differential-geometric analogues as the triangulation becomes small. The first such result is for a cochain cup product converging to the wedge product on differential forms. Moreover, we show any extension of this product to a C_∞-algebra also converges to the wedge product of forms. For cochains equipped with an inner product, we define a combinatorial star operator and show that for a certain cochain inner product this operator converges to the smooth Hodge star operator.     

Conformal cochains

In this paper we define holomorphic cochains and an associated period matrix for triangulated closed topological surfaces. We use the combinatorial Hodge star operator introduced in the author's paper of 2007, which depends on the choice of an inner product on the simplicial 1-cochains.

We prove that for a triangulated Riemannian 2-manifold (or a Riemann surface), and a particularly nice choice of inner product, the combinatorial period matrix converges to the (conformal) Riemann period matrix as the mesh of the triangulation tends to zero.

     

Realizability of the torus and the projective plane in ℝ4

We show that every triangulation of the projective plane or the torus is isomorphic to a subcomplex of the boundary complex of a simplicial 5-dimensional convex polytope and thus linearly embeddable in ℝ⁴.     

On the Stanley ring of cubical complex

We investigate the properties of the Stanley ring of a cubical complex, a cubical analogue of the Stanley-Reisner ring of a simplicial complex. We compute its Hilbert series in terms of thef-vector, and prove that by taking the initial ideal of the defining relations, with respect to the reverse lexicographic order, we obtain the defining relations of the Stanley-Reisner ring of the triangulation via “pulling the vertices” of the cubical complex. Applying an old idea of Hochster we see that this ring is Cohen-Macaulay when the complex is shellable, and we show that its defining ideal is generated by quadrics when the complex is also a subcomplex of the boundary complex of a convex cubical polytope. We present a cubical analogue of balanced Cohen-Macaulay simplicial complexes: the class of edge-orientable shellable cubical complexes. Using Stanley's results about balanced Cohen-Macaulay simplicial complexes and the degree two homogeneous generating system of the defining ideal, we obtain an infinite set of examples for a conjecture of Eisenbud, Green, and Harris. This conjecture says that theh-vector of a polynomial ring inn variables modulo an ideal which has ann-element homogeneous system of parameters of degree two, is thef-vector of a simplicial complex.     

Cubical Subdivisions and Local h-Vectors

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 share many of the properties of their simplicial counterparts. Generalizations to subdivisions of locally Eulerian posets are also discussed.     

Tchebyshev triangulations of stable simplicial complexes

We generalize the notion of the Tchebyshev transform of a graded poset to a triangulation of an arbitrary simplicial complex in such a way that, at the level of the associated F-polynomials j_∑fj−1(j(x−1)/2), the triangulation induces taking the Tchebyshev transform of the first kind. We also present a related multiset of simplicial complexes whose association induces taking the Tchebyshev transform of the second kind. Using the reverse implication of a theorem by Schelin we observe that the Tchebyshev transforms of Schur stable polynomials with real coefficients have interlaced real roots in the interval (−1,1), and present ways to construct simplicial complexes with Schur stable F-polynomials. We show that the order complex of a Boolean algebra is Schur stable. Using and expanding the recently discovered relation between the derivative polynomials for tangent and secant and the Tchebyshev polynomials we prove that the roots of the corresponding pairs of derivative polynomials are all pure imaginary, of modulus at most one, and interlaced.     

Coarse homotopy groups

In this note on coarse geometry we revisit coarse homotopy. We prove that coarse homotopy indeed is an equivalence relation, and this in the most general context of abstract coarse structures. We introduce (in a geometric way) coarse homotopy groups. The main result is that the coarse homotopy groups of a cone over a compact simplicial complex coincide with the usual homotopy groups of the underlying compact simplicial complex. To prove this we develop geometric triangulation techniques for cones which we expect to be of relevance also in different contexts.     

A recurrence/transience result for circle packings

It is known that any infinite simplicial complex homeomorphic to the plane and satisfying a couple of other conditions is the nerve of a circle packing of either the plane or the disc (and not of both). We prove that such a complex is the nerve of a packing of the plane or the disc according as the simple random walk on its 1-skeleton is recurrent or transient, and discuss some applications. We also prove a criterion for transience of simple random walk on the 1-skeleton of a triangulation of the plane, in terms of average degrees of suitable sets of vertices.

     

Euclidean 4-Simplices and Invariants of Four-Dimensional Manifolds: II. An Algebraic Complex and Moves 2↔4

We present sequences of linear maps of vector spaces with fixed bases. Each term of a sequence is a linear space of differentials of metric values ascribed to the elements of a simplicial complex determining a triangulation of a manifold. If a sequence is an acyclic complex, then we can construct a manifold invariant using its torsion. We demonstrate this first for three-dimensional manifolds and then construct the part of this program for four-dimensional manifolds pertaining to moves 24.     

Shelling Polyhedral 3-Balls and 4-Polytopes

There is a long history of constructions of nonshellable triangulations of three-dimensional (topological) balls. This paper gives a survey of these constructions, including Furch's 1924 construction using knotted curves, which also appears in Bing's 1962 survey of combinatorial approaches to the Poincaré conjecture, Newman's 1926 explicit example, and M. E. Rudin's 1958 nonshellable triangulation of a tetrahedron with only 14 vertices (all on the boundary) and 41 facets. Here an (extremely simple) new example is presented: a nonshellable simplicial three-dimensional ball with only 10 vertices and 21 facets. It is further shown that shellings of simplicial 3 -balls and 4 -polytopes can ``get stuck': simplicial 4 -polytopes are not in general ``extendably shellable.' Our constructions imply that a Delaunay triangulation algorithm of Beichl and Sullivan, which proceeds along a shelling of a Delaunay triangulation, can get stuck in the three-dimensional version: for example, this may happen if the shelling follows a knotted curve. Received November 21, 1995, and in revised form September 20, 1996.     

Star clusters in independence complexes of graphs

We introduce the notion of star cluster of a simplex in a simplicial complex. This concept provides a general tool to study the topology of independence complexes of graphs. We use star clusters to answer a question arisen from works of Engström and Jonsson on the homotopy type of independence complexes of triangle-free graphs and to investigate a large number of examples which appear in the literature. We present an alternative way to study the chromatic and clique numbers of a graph from a homotopical point of view and obtain new results regarding the connectivity of independence complexes.     

On the existence of a combinatorial Schlegel diagram of a simplical unstacked 3-polytope with a prescribed set of vertices

It is shown that, except for two well defined configurations, any finite set with exactly three points on ∂V is the vertex set of a triangulation of [V] which is combinatorially the Schlegel diagram of a simplicial unstacked 3-polytope.     

Geometric combinatorics of Weyl groupoids

We extend properties of the weak order on finite Coxeter groups to Weyl groupoids admitting a finite root system. In particular, we determine the topological structure of intervals with respect to weak order, and show that the set of morphisms with fixed target object forms an ortho-complemented meet semilattice. We define the Coxeter complex of a Weyl groupoid with finite root system and show that it coincides with the triangulation of a sphere cut out by a simplicial hyperplane arrangement. As a consequence, one obtains an algebraic interpretation of many hyperplane arrangements that are not reflection arrangements.     

A minimal triangulation of complex projective plane admitting a chess colouring of four-dimensional simplices

We construct and study a new 15-vertex triangulation X of the complex projective plane ℂP². The automorphism group of X is isomorphic to S ₄ × S ₃. We prove that the triangulation X is the minimal (with respect to the number of vertices) triangulation of ℂP² admitting a chess colouring of four-dimensional simplices. We provide explicit parametrizations for the simplices of X and show that the automorphism group of X can be realized as a group of isometries of the Fubini-Study metric. We find a 33-vertex subdivision $ \bar X $ \bar X of the triangulation X such that the classical moment mapping μ: ℂP² → Δ² is a simplicial mapping of the triangulation $ \bar X $ \bar X onto the barycentric subdivision of the triangle Δ². We study the relationship of the triangulation X with complex crystallographic groups.     

An improvement of fixed point algorithms by using a good triangulation

We consider measures for triangulations ofR ⁿ. A new measure is introduced based on the ratio of the length of the sides and the content of the subsimplices of the triangulation. In a subclass of triangulations, which is appropriate for computing fixed points using simplicial subdivisions, the optimal one according to this measure is calculated and some of its properties are given. It is proved that for the average directional density this triangulation is optimal (within the subclass) asn goes to infinity. Furthermore, we compare the measures of the optimal triangulation with those of other triangulations. We also propose a new triangulation of the affine hull of the unit simplex. Finally, we report some computational experience that confirms the theoretical results.     

Catalan Triangulations of the Möbius Band

A Catalan triangulation of the Möbius band is an abstract simplicial complex triangulating the Möbius band which uses no interior vertices, and has vertices labelled 1, 2, …, n in order as one traverses the boundary. We prove two results about the structure of this set, analogous to well-known results for Catalan triangulations of the disk. The first is a generating function for Catalan triangulations of M having n vertices, and the second is that any two such triangulations are connected by a sequence of diagonal-flips.     

Local coarsening of simplicial finite element meshes generated by bisections

A simple criterion that allows the efficient local coarsening of simplicial finite element meshes generated by bisections is devised and analyzed. Under a mild condition on the initial triangulation the proposed criterion allows to gradually reverse the entire refinement without employing its history explicitly. Numerical experiments underline the efficiency of the resulting algorithm.     

On stability ofm-variateC 1 interpolation

A simplicial mesh (triangulation) is constructed that generalizes the two-dimensional 4-direction mesh to ℝ ^m . This mesh, with symmetric, shift-invariant values at the vertices, is shown to admit a bounded C¹ interpolant if and only if the alternating sum of the values at the vertices of any 1-cube is zero. This implies that interpolation at the vertices of an m-dimensional, simplicial mesh by a C¹ piecewise polynomial of degree m+1 with one piece per simplex is unstable.     

Complexes of Discrete Distributional Differential Forms and Their Homology Theory

Complexes of discrete distributional differential forms are introduced into finite element exterior calculus. Thus, we generalize a notion of Braess and Schöberl, originally studied for a posteriori error estimation. We construct isomorphisms between the simplicial homology groups of the triangulation, the discrete harmonic forms of the finite element complex, and the harmonic forms of the distributional finite element complexes. As an application, we prove that the complexes of finite element exterior calculus have cohomology groups isomorphic to the de Rham cohomology, including the case of partial boundary conditions. Poincaré–Friedrichs-type inequalities will be studied in a subsequent contribution.