Face numbers and nongeneric initial ideals (Q2583632)

The study of the face numbers of simplicial complexes gave rise to develop many powerful methods and tools, such as the theory of Stanley-Reisner rings and Kalai's algebraic shifting related to generic initial ideals. These tools led researchers to a lot of deep results, including Stanley's characterization of the face numbers of all Cohen-Macaulay complexes, the characterization of the flag face numbers of all balanced Cohen-Macaulay complexes (the necessity is due to Stanley, the sufficiency was shown by Björner, Frankl and Stanley), and the characterization of the face numbers of all simplicial complexes with prescribed Betti numbers (due to Björner and Kalai). The authors of the present paper study the face numbers of two classes of simplicial complexes: complexes endowed with a group action and complexes which are balanced. They accomplish this by exploring the behavior of an only partially generic initial ideal of the corresponding Stanley-Reisner ideal. More precisely, they prove certain necessary conditions on the face numbers and Betti numbers of simplicial complexes endowed with a group action (similar to the necessity part in the Björner-Kalai theorem). Furthermore, they use a certain algebraic shifting method to provide a simpler proof of the characterization of the flag face numbers of balanced Cohen-Macaulay complexes, and to generalize the necessity part of this for getting conditions on the face numbers and Betti numbers of balanced Buchsbaum complexes (e.g., simplicial manifolds). For obtaining these results, the authors also use the combinatorics of the only partially generic initial ideal of the Stanley-Reisner ideal mentioned already above.