Right-angularity, flag complexes, asphericity (Q438949)

This paper gives three constructions of spaces and obtains conditions in each case for the resulting space to be aspherical. Also, conditions are obtained for the resulting spaces to be closed manifolds. The first one \(\mathcal{Z}_L(\mathbf{A},\mathbf{B})\) is a polyhedral product over a simplicial complex \(L\) of a collection \((\mathbf{A},\mathbf{B})=(A_i,B_i)_{i\in I}\), where \(I\) is the indexing set for vertices of \(L\). \textit{Theorem:} Suppose that (i) each \(A_i\) is aspherical, (ii) when \(i\) corresponds to a `non-coneline' vertex of \(L\), each path component of \(B_i\) is aspherical and its inclusion into \(A_i\) induces a monomorphism of fundamental groups, and, (iii) \(L\) is a flag complex. Then \(\mathcal{Z}_L(\mathbf{A},\mathbf{B})\) is aspherical. In the second construction, the author starts with a space \(X\) with a `mirror structure', which is a collection \(\mathcal{M}=\{X_i\}_{i\in I}\) of closed subspaces of \(X\). The nerve \(N(\mathcal{M})\) of \(\mathcal{M}\) is the simplicial complex associated to the partially ordered set of finite subsets \(J\subset I\) for which \(X_J:=\cap_{j\in J}X_j\neq \empty\) (\(X_\emptyset:=X\)). It is a `corner structure' if \(I=I(n)= \{0,1,\cdots,n\}\) and \(X_J:\neq \emptyset\) all \(J\subset I(n)\) or, equivalently, \(N(\mathcal{M})\) is an \(n\)-simplex. If \(p:\widetilde{X}\to X\) is the universal covering projection, the \(p\) induces a mirror structure \(\widetilde{\mathcal{M}}\) on \(\widetilde{X}\) whose members are the path-components of inverse images the \(X_i, i\in I\). Suppose that \((W,S)\) is a spherical Coxeter system where the set \(S\) of fundamental involutions is indexed by \(I\). The space \(\mathcal{U}(W,X)\) is defined as a quotient \(W\times X/\sim\) where \((w,x)\sim (w',x')\) if \(x=x'\) and \(w'w^{-1}\in W_{I(x)}\); here \(I(x):=\{i\in I\mid x\in X_i\}\) and \(W_J\) is the subgroup of \(W\) generated by \(s_j\in S,j\in J.\) Let \(\mathcal{M}=\{X_i\}_{i\in I(n)}\) be a corner of \(X\) and let \((W,S)\) be a spherical Coxeter system. It is shown that \(\mathcal{U}(W,X)\) is aspherical if and only if the following conditions hold: (i)' \(X\) is aspherical, (ii)' every path component of inverse image of \(X_J\) in the universal cover \(\widetilde{X}\) is acyclic for all \(J\subset I(n)\), (iii)' the nerve \(N(\widetilde{\mathcal{M}})\) is a flag complex. The third construction is a certain space which is a `pull-back' \(f^*(X)\), where \(X\) is a space with corner structure, \(f: L\to \Delta\) of colouring of a simplicial complex \(L\) (\(\Delta\) being the \(n\)-simplex with vertex set labelled by \(I(n)\)). The map \(f\) codes the gluing data for pasting together copies of \(X\) to obtain \(f^*(X)\). The space \(f^*(X)\) is aspherical if conditions (i)', (ii)', (iii)' above hold along with the requirement that \(L\) be a flag complex. The paper is very well written and contains plenty of motivating and illustrative examples.