Many triangulated spheres (Q1094674)

This paper gives a surprisingly large lower bound for the number s(d,n) of triangulations of the (d-1)-sphere with n labeled vertices. Together with a known upper bound one gets \[ C_ 1 n^{[(d-1)/2]} \leq \log s(d,n) \leq C_ 2 n^{[d/2]} \log n, \] where \(C_ 1\), \(C_ 2\) are constants depending on d. Furthermore let c(d,n) denote the number of simplicial d-polytopes with n labeled vertices. According to \textit{J. Goodman} and \textit{R. Pollack} [Bull. Am. Math. Soc., New Ser. 14, 127-129 (1986; Zbl 0585.52003)] there holds \(c(d,n) \leq d(d+1)n \log n.\) From the author's lower bound it follows that for every \(d\geq 5\) the quotient c(d,n)/s(d,n) tends to 0 for \(n\to \infty\). This is open for \(d=4\), and for \(d=3\) \(s(3,n)=c(3,n)\) for every n. The construction of this large number of triangulated spheres uses the concept of squeezed balls and squeezed spheres. These are generated by initial sets according to the partial order \(<_ p\) on the set of ordered d-subsets of \({\mathbb{N}}\) where \(\{i_ 1,...,i_ k\}<_ p\{j_ 1,...,j_ k\}\) iff \(i_ k\leq j_ k\) for all k.