Sortable simplicial complexes and \(t\)-independence ideals of proper interval graphs (Q2309236)

Let \(\Delta\) be a simplicial complex and assume the \(F\) and \(G\) are faces of \(\Delta\) with \(|F|=r\) and \(|G|=s\). Suppose that\[\mathbf{\mathrm{x}}^F\mathbf{\mathrm{x}}^G=x_{i_1} \ldots x_{i_{r+s}} \ \mathrm{with} \ i_1\leq i_2\leq \ldots \leq i_{r+s}.\]Then \(\mathrm{sort}(F,G)\) is defined as \(\mathrm{sort}(F,G)=(F',G')\), where \(F'=\{i_k: 1\leq k\leq r+s, k \ \text{ is odd}\}\) and \(G'=\{i_k: 1\leq k\leq r+s, k \ \text{is even}\}\). In the paper under review, the authors introduce the notion of sortable and \(t\)-sortable simplicial complexes as follows. A simplicial complex \(\Delta\) is sortable if there exists a labeling with integers on \(V(\Delta)\) such that for any \(F, G\in \Delta\) one has \(\mathrm{sort}(F,G)\in \Delta\times\Delta\). Let \(t\) be a positive integer. Then \(\Delta\) is \(t\)-sortable if there exists a labeling with integers on \(V(\Delta)\) such that for any \(F, G\in \Delta\) with \(|F|=|G|=t\) one has \(\mathrm{sort}(F,G)\in \Delta\times\Delta\). It is shown that the independence complex of a graph \(G\) is sortable if and only if \(G\) is a proper interval graph. By using this characterization, it is proven that for a proper interval graph, the ideal generated by all squarefree monomials corresponding to independent sets of vertices of \(G\) of size \(t\) (for a given positive integer \(t\)) has the strong persistence property. Moreover, all of its powers have linear quotients.