Deletion-restriction for sheaf homology of graded atomic lattices (Q2136560)

An atom in a finite lattice \(L\) is an element that covers the smallest element; a finite lattice is atomic if every element is the join of the atoms beneath it. The most well-known examples are lattices of flats of matroids or hyperplane arrangements and face lattices of convex polytopes. There is a natural notion of deletion \(L_a\) and contraction \(L^a\) of such a lattice relative to an atom \(a\), generalizing edge-deletions and contractions in graphs. Each of \(L_a\) and \(L^a\) is a sublattice of \(L\), though \(L^a\) need not be atomic. A sheaf over a poset \(P\) is a contravariant functor from \(P\) to the category of modules over a ring \(R\); this data determines a sheaf of \(R\)-modules on the nerve of \(P\). The first main result in the paper under review relates the homology of a sheaf on \(L-\{0_L\}\) and associated sheaves on \(L_a-\{0_L\}\) and \(L^a-\{a\}\), via a Mayer-Vietoris-like long exact sequence. Analogous exact sequences have appeared in the study of cohomology of local systems on hyperplane complements, e.g., [\textit{D. C. Cohen}, Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 130, No. 10, 3025--3031 (2002; Zbl 1002.32019)]. The second main result is an application of this sequence to compute the homology of a natural sheaf on the intersection lattice of a hyperplane arrangement, whose stalk at a subspace \(X\) is \(X\) itself. This homology is shown to vanish except in degrees zero and two less than the rank of \(L\), with the dimension of the top homology group equal the beta invariant of the arrangement. Lusztig introduced this sheaf as a tool in the representation theory of \(GL_n\), and computed the homology in the special case of the arrangement of all hyperplanes in a finite vector space [\textit{G. Lusztig}, Bull. Am. Math. Soc. 79, 550--554 (1973; Zbl 0337.20021)]. The beta invariant counts the homology facets in the EL-shelling of the reduced broken circuit complex determined by a linear order on the set of hyperplanes, yielding a homology basis. The authors review this construction and discuss the issues involved in extending the correspondence to homology with coefficients in the natural sheaf.