Decomposition theorem for the cd-index of Gorenstein posets (Q2457937)

The \textbf{cd}-index \(\Psi_P\) of a convex polytope \(P\) was devised by Jonathan Fine, as an efficient way of encoding the flag-numbers of \(P\), but since then it has proved to have many wider applications, particularly to Eulerian posets. In the context of polytopes, various monotonicity properties of the \textbf{cd}-index have been established. For example, Billera and Ehrenborg showed (using line shellings) that \(\Psi_P \geq \Psi_F \cdot \Psi_{\text{ Pyr}(P/F)}\), where \(F\) is any proper face of \(P\) and \(\text{ Pyr}(P/F)\) is the pyramid over the quotient polytope \(P/F\); as a consequence, the \textbf{cd}-index of \(n\)-polytopes is minimized by that of the \(n\)-simplex. Here, the authors prove an exactly analogous result for Gorenstein* lattices and their proper intervals, so that their \textbf{cd}-indices are minimized by Boolean algebras and, in particular, have non-negative integer coefficients (the latter result was established earlier by \textit{K. Karu} [Compositio Math. 142, 701--718 (2006; Zbl 1103.14029)]). They also prove a corresponding result for decompositions: if \(\widehat\Pi\) is a subdivision of a Gorenstein* poset \(\Pi\), then \(\Psi_{\widehat\Pi} \geq \Psi_\Pi\).