On the Stanley-Reisner ideal of an expanded simplicial complex (Q309286)

Let \(\Delta\) be a simplicial complex on \(X\), \(\alpha =(s_1, \ldots, s_n)\in \mathbb{N}^n\) and \(F =\{x_{i_1}, \ldots, x_{i_r}\}\) be a facet of \(\Delta\). The expansion of the simplex \(\langle F\rangle\) with respect to \(\alpha\) is denoted by \(\langle F\rangle^{\alpha}\) and is defined as a simplicial complex on the vertex set \(\{x_{i_lt_l}: 1\leq l\leq r, 1\leq t_l\leq s_{i_l}\}\) with facets \[ \big\{\{x_{i_1j_1}, \ldots, x_{i_rj_r}\} : 1\leq j_m \leq s_{i_m}\big\}. \] The expansion of \(\Delta\) with respect to \(\alpha\) is defined as \[ \Delta^{\alpha}=\bigcup_{F\in \Delta}\langle F\rangle^{\alpha}. \] The notion of expansion of a simplicial complex was defined in [\textit{S. Moradi} et al., J. Algebra Appl. 15, No. 1, 1--15 (2016; Zbl 1338.13041)] as a natural generalization of the concept of expansion in graph theory and some properties of a simplicial complex and its expansions were related to each other. In the paper under review, the authors investigate more relations between algebraic properties of the Stanley-Reisner ideal of a simplicial complex and those of its expansions. In particular, it is shown that \(\Delta\) is Cohen-Macaulay, sequentially Cohen-Macaulay, Buchsbaum or \(k\)-decomposable, if and only if an arbitrary expansion of \(\Delta\) has the same property. Furthermore, the authors study the regularity and the projective dimension of the Stanley-Reisner ideal of the expansions of a given simplicial complex. They prove that for every simplicial complex \(\Delta\) and every vector \(s=(s_1, \ldots, s_n)\in \mathbb{N}^n\), we have \(\text{reg}(I_{\Delta^{\alpha}})\leq \text{reg}(I_{\Delta}) + r\), where \(r =|\{i : s_i > 1\}|\). If moreover \(\Delta\) is sequentially Cohen-Macaulay, then \[ \text{pd}(I_{\Delta^{\alpha}})= \text{pd}(I_{\Delta}) + s_1+\cdots +s_n-n. \]