29 research outputs found
Cohen-Macaulay graphs and face vectors of flag complexes
We introduce a construction on a flag complex that, by means of modifying the
associated graph, generates a new flag complex whose -factor is the face
vector of the original complex. This construction yields a vertex-decomposable,
hence Cohen-Macaulay, complex. From this we get a (non-numerical)
characterisation of the face vectors of flag complexes and deduce also that the
face vector of a flag complex is the -vector of some vertex-decomposable
flag complex. We conjecture that the converse of the latter is true and prove
this, by means of an explicit construction, for -vectors of Cohen-Macaulay
flag complexes arising from bipartite graphs. We also give several new
characterisations of bipartite graphs with Cohen-Macaulay or Buchsbaum
independence complexes.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures; major updat