Simplicial and Cellular Trees

Much information about a graph can be obtained by studying its spanning trees. On the other hand, a graph can be regarded as a 1-dimensional cell complex, raising the question of developing a theory of trees in higher dimension. As observed first by Bolker, Kalai and Adin, and more recently by numerous authors, the fundamental topological properties of a tree --- namely acyclicity and connectedness --- can be generalized to arbitrary dimension as the vanishing of certain cellular homology groups. This point of view is consistent with the matroid-theoretic approach to graphs, and yields higher-dimensional analogues of classical enumerative results including Cayley's formula and the matrix-tree theorem. A subtlety of the higher-dimensional case is that enumeration must account for the possibility of torsion homology in trees, which is always trivial for graphs. Cellular trees are the starting point for further high-dimensional extensions of concepts from algebraic graph theory including the critical group, cut and flow spaces, and discrete dynamical systems such as the abelian sandpile model.Comment: 39 pages (including 5-page bibliography); 5 figures. Chapter for forthcoming IMA volume "Recent Trends in Combinatorics

Discrete Morse theory for moment-angle complexes of pairs (D^n,S^{n-1})

For a finite simplicial complex K and a CW-pair (X,A), there is an associated CW-complex Z_K(X,A), known as a polyhedral product. We apply discrete Morse theory to a particular CW-structure on the n-sphere moment-angle complexes Z_K(D^{n}, S^{n-1}). For the class of simplicial complexes with vertex-decomposable duals, we show that the associated n-sphere moment-angle complexes have the homotopy type of wedges of spheres. As a corollary we show that a sufficiently high suspension of any restriction of a simplicial complex with vertex-decomposable dual is homotopy equivalent to a wedge of spheres.Comment: Corollary 1.2 and 1 reference added. Some formulations and arguments made more precis

Homotopy Type of the Boolean Complex of a Coxeter System

In any Coxeter group, the set of elements whose principal order ideals are boolean forms a simplicial poset under the Bruhat order. This simplicial poset defines a cell complex, called the boolean complex. In this paper it is shown that, for any Coxeter system of rank n, the boolean complex is homotopy equivalent to a wedge of (n-1)-dimensional spheres. The number of such spheres can be computed recursively from the unlabeled Coxeter graph, and defines a new graph invariant called the boolean number. Specific calculations of the boolean number are given for all finite and affine irreducible Coxeter systems, as well as for systems with graphs that are disconnected, complete, or stars. One implication of these results is that the boolean complex is contractible if and only if a generator of the Coxeter system is in the center of the group. of these results is that the boolean complex is contractible if and only if a generator of the Coxeter system is in the center of the group.Comment: final version, to appear in Advances in Mathematic