Erdos-Ko-Rado theorems for simplicial complexes

A recent framework for generalizing the Erdos-Ko-Rado Theorem, due to Holroyd, Spencer, and Talbot, defines the Erdos-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 Erdos-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.Comment: 14 pages; v2 has minor changes; v3 has further minor changes for publicatio

Antichain cutsets of strongly connected posets

Rival and Zaguia showed that the antichain cutsets of a finite Boolean lattice are exactly the level sets. We show that a similar characterization of antichain cutsets holds for any strongly connected poset of locally finite height. As a corollary, we get such a characterization for semimodular lattices, supersolvable lattices, Bruhat orders, locally shellable lattices, and many more. We also consider a generalization to strongly connected hypergraphs having finite edges.Comment: 12 pages; v2 contains minor fixes for publicatio

Linear resolutions of powers and products

The goal of this paper is to present examples of families of homogeneous ideals in the polynomial ring over a field that satisfy the following condition: every product of ideals of the family has a linear free resolution. As we will see, this condition is strongly correlated to good primary decompositions of the products and good homological and arithmetical properties of the associated multi-Rees algebras. The following families will be discussed in detail: polymatroidal ideals, ideals generated by linear forms and Borel fixed ideals of maximal minors. The main tools are Gr\"obner bases and Sagbi deformation

Toric complexes and Artin kernels

A simplicial complex L on n vertices determines a subcomplex T_L of the n-torus, with fundamental group the right-angled Artin group G_L. Given an epimorphism \chi\colon G_L\to \Z, let T_L^\chi be the corresponding cover, with fundamental group the Artin kernel N_\chi. We compute the cohomology jumping loci of the toric complex T_L, as well as the homology groups of T_L^\chi with coefficients in a field \k, viewed as modules over the group algebra \k\Z. We give combinatorial conditions for H_{\le r}(T_L^\chi;\k) to have trivial \Z-action, allowing us to compute the truncated cohomology ring, H^{\le r}(T_L^\chi;\k). We also determine several Lie algebras associated to Artin kernels, under certain triviality assumptions on the monodromy \Z-action, and establish the 1-formality of these (not necessarily finitely presentable) groups.Comment: 34 page