Regular cell complexes in total positivity

This paper proves a conjecture of Fomin and Shapiro that their combinatorial model for any Bruhat interval is a regular CW complex which is homeomorphic to a ball. The model consists of a stratified space which may be regarded as the link of an open cell intersected with a larger closed cell, all within the totally nonnegative part of the unipotent radical of an algebraic group. A parametrization due to Lusztig turns out to have all the requisite features to provide the attaching maps. A key ingredient is a new, readily verifiable criterion for which finite CW complexes are regular involving an interplay of topology with combinatorics.Comment: accepted to Inventiones Mathematicae; 60 pages; substantially revised from earlier version

The Morse theory of \v{C}ech and Delaunay complexes

Given a finite set of points in $\mathbb R^n$ and a radius parameter, we study the \v{C}ech, Delaunay-\v{C}ech, Delaunay (or Alpha), and Wrap complexes in the light of generalized discrete Morse theory. Establishing the \v{C}ech and Delaunay complexes as sublevel sets of generalized discrete Morse functions, we prove that the four complexes are simple-homotopy equivalent by a sequence of simplicial collapses, which are explicitly described by a single discrete gradient field.Comment: 21 pages, 2 figures, improved expositio

The combinatorial Mandelbrot set as the quotient of the space of geolaminations

We interpret the combinatorial Mandelbrot set in terms of \it{quadratic laminations} (equivalence relations $\sim$ on the unit circle invariant under $\sigma_2$). To each lamination we associate a particular {\em geolamination} (the collection $\mathcal{L}_\sim$ of points of the circle and edges of convex hulls of $\sim$-equivalence classes) so that the closure of the set of all of them is a compact metric space with the Hausdorff metric. Two such geolaminations are said to be {\em minor equivalent} if their {\em minors} (images of their longest chords) intersect. We show that the corresponding quotient space of this topological space is homeomorphic to the boundary of the combinatorial Mandelbrot set. To each equivalence class of these geolaminations we associate a unique lamination and its topological polynomial so that this interpretation can be viewed as a way to endow the space of all quadratic topological polynomials with a suitable topology.Comment: 28 pages; in the new version a few typos are corrected; to appear in Contemporary Mathematic

On the distance between the expressions of a permutation

We prove that the combinatorial distance between any two reduced expressions of a given permutation of {1, ..., n} in terms of transpositions lies in O(n^4), a sharp bound. Using a connection with the intersection numbers of certain curves in van Kampen diagrams, we prove that this bound is sharp, and give a practical criterion for proving that the derivations provided by the reversing algorithm of [Dehornoy, JPAA 116 (1997) 115-197] are optimal. We also show the existence of length l expressions whose reversing requires C l^4 elementary steps