A property of colored complexes and their duals (Q1970717)

A ranked poset \(P\) is a Macauley poset if there is a linear order \(<\) of the elements of \(P\) such that for any \(m,i\), the set \(C(m,i)\) of the \(m\) (with respect to \(<)\) smallest elements of rank \(i\) has minimum sized shadow among all \(m\)-subsets of the \(i\)-th level and this shadow consists of the smallest elements of the \((i-1)^{\text{st}}\) level as well. \(P\) is shadow-increasing if for all \(m,i\), the shadow of \(C(m,i+1)\) is not smaller than the shadow of \(C(m,i)\). Colored complexes are (Cartesian) product posets \((\underline{1}\oplus \underline{k_1})\times\cdots \times(\underline{1}\oplus \underline{k_n})\), where \(A\oplus B\) is the linear (ordinal sum) and where \(\underline n\) is an antichain (poset) containing \(n\) elements. Their duals (opposites), the star complexes can be represented as product posets \((\underline{k_1}\oplus \underline{1})\times\cdots\times(\underline{k_n}\oplus \underline{1})\). These classes contain products of chains (boxes) and many other interesting as well as important subclasses. It is shown that colored complexes and star complexes are shadow-increasing, which generalizes the known result for products of chains a considerable amount.