Enumeration of \({\mathbb{Q}}\)-acyclic simplicial complexes (Q791200): Difference between revisions

According to a theorem of Cayley, the number of trees on a fixed set of \(n\) vertices is \(n^{n-2}\). Generalizing this, the author considers the set \(X_{n,k}\) of all \(k\)-dimensional simplicial complexes \(C\) with vertices \(1,\dots,n\) which have a complete \((k-1)\)-skeleton and \(\left( \begin{matrix} n-1\\ k\end{matrix} \right)\) faces of dimension \(k\) and whose \(k\)-dimensional homology vanishes. He shows that then \(H_{k-1}(C)\) is finite and, moreover,\(\sum | H_{k-1}(C)|^ 2=n^ r,\) where \(r=\left( \begin{matrix} n-2\\ k\end{matrix} \right)\), the sum being taken over all \(C\in X_{n,k}\). For \(k=1\), this is Cayley's result. For \(n\) large, an estimate for the expectation of \(| H_{k-1}(C)|^ 2\) over all \(C\in X_{n,k}\) is derived. Finally, \(X_{n,2}\) is examined in detail for \(n\leq 6\). It turns out that the only non-collapsible members are triangulations of the projective plane obtained from a regular icosahedron by identifying antipodal faces.