Triangulations of the product of spheres with few vertices (Q2306466)

From [\textit{U. Brehm} and \textit{W. Kühnel}, Topology 26, 465--473 (1987; Zbl 0681.57009)], it is known that a combinatorial triangulation of \(\mathbb{S}^i \times \mathbb{S}^{d-i-1}\), for \(1\leq i \leq (d-1)/2\), has at least \(2d-i+2\) vertices. One can furthermore consider triangulations which are centrally symmetric, i.e., the complex is equipped with a free involution on its vertex set that induces a free involution on all simplices. A balanced triangulation of \(\mathbb{S}^1 \times \mathbb{S}^{d-2}\) with \(3d\) vertices and a centrally symmetric triangulation of \(\mathbb{S}^i \times \mathbb{S}^{d-i-1}\) with \(2d+2\) vertices have been constructed in [\textit{S. Klee} and \textit{I. Novik}, Adv. Math. 229, No. 1, 487--500 (2012; Zbl 1236.52010)], for \(d\geq 3\) and \(1\leq i \leq (d-2)\). In this article, the authors give an alternative centrally symmetric \((2d + 2)\)-vertex triangulation of \(\mathbb{S}^i \times \mathbb{S}^{d-i-1}\). In addition, the authors consider balanced triangulations: a \((d-1)\)-dimensional simplicial complex is balanced if its underlying 1-skeleton graph is \(d\)-colorable. The authors also find the first balanced triangulation of \(\mathbb{S}^2 \times \mathbb{S}^{d-3}\) with \(4d\) vertices; their construction is inspired by handle theory. All the results of this article are also available in the article [\textit{A. Wang} and \textit{H. Zheng}, Eur. J. Comb. 85, Article ID 103043, 13 p. (2020; Zbl 1434.52017)].