Local cohomology and stratification (Q2309516)

The ``canonical stratification'' of a finite CW-complex is the coarsest stratification where all the strata are unions of cells. This paper provides an algorithmic recovery of this stratification. The approach is to construct a complex of cosheaves which encodes how the local topology of the complex varies across cells, and to work in the category of cohomologically stratified spaces. The algorithm, which given the face poset of a finite \(n\)-dimensional regular CW-complex assigns a canonical codimension to the cells is explicitly described. The author gives a time complexity for the algorithm. The paper contains illuminating explicit geometrical examples.