Shellability of a poset of polygonal subdivisions (Q2380325)

The author introduces a sequence of posets closely related to the associahedra, the posets of compound collapses of convex polygons. These posets are relevant to understanding smoothed compositions of paths in a manifold the same way the associahedra are relevant to the description of products which are associative only up to homotopy. The author shows that, after adding a smallest element, his posets become graded posets, lattices, which are dual \(CL\)-shellable and thin. Analogously to associahedra, every interval in these posets is a product of smaller posets of compound collapses and of face posets of associahedra. By a result of \textit{A. Björner} [Eur. J. Comb. 5, 7--16 (1984; Zbl 0538.06001)], the posets introduced in this paper are face posets of regular \(PL\)-cell decompositions of balls, thus the author raises the open question whether they are also face posets of convex polytopes.