Combinatorial algebraic topology (Q5919887)

This is an introduction to the beautiful world of combinatorial algebraic topology, describing the modern research tools and latest applications in this field. The text is divided into three major parts: Concepts of algebraic topology, methods of combinatorial algebraic topology, Complexes of Graph Homomorphisms. The first part contains some of the basic concepts of algebraic topology: cell complexes, homology groups, concepts of category theory, exact sequences, homotopy, cofibrations, principal \(\Gamma \)-bundles and Stiefel-Whitney characteristic classes. Since the mathematics of the first part is much more classical the author gives general references to the existing textbooks. An exception is provided by the final chapter on principal \(\Gamma \)-bundles where the author gives some reading suggestions, the material being slightly less standard. If the audience of the course is sufficiently familiar with algebraic topology, the author suggests to start directly with the second part. Here he presents the foundations of combinatorial algebraic topology with the most important tools used in research in topological combinatorics over the last twenty years. The major novelty is the general shift of focus from the category of posets to the category of acyclic categories. The entire chapter 10 is devoted to the development of the fundamental theory of acyclic categories and of the topology of their nerves, which are regular triangulated spaces. In chapter 11 the author gives results on discrete Morse theory: a combinatorial, topological and algebraic part, each one with its own specifics. A very new feature here is the recasting of discrete Morse theory of posets in terms of poset maps with small fibers. This, together with the existence of a universal object associated to every acyclic matching and the Patchwork Theorem allows for a structural understanding of the techniques that have been used until now. There are further novelties scattered in the remaining four chapters of the second part. In chapter 13 the author connects the notion of evasiveness with monotone poset maps, and introduces the notion of NE-reduction. After that, the importance of colimits in combinatorial algebraic topology is emphasized. Regular colimits and their relations with group actions are presented in chapter 14, and the homotopy colimits in chapter 15. Complete proofs are provided for all the statements in Chapter 15, based on the previous groundwork pertaining to cofibrations in chapter 7. Finally, in chapter 16, the author takes a daring step of counting the machinery of spectral sequences to the core methods of Combinatorial Algebraic Topology. The last part of the book is a foray into one specific realm of a present-day application: the topology of complexes of graph homomorphisms. It is an illustration of various techniques developed in the second part. This could be used as material for a reading seminar on Chromatic numbers and the Kneser Conjecture, structural theory of morphism complexes, characteristic classes and chromatic numbers, applications of spectral sequence to Hom Complexes. Each chapter in the second and third part ends with a detailed bibliographic account of the contents of the chapter. This is an interesting book with large perspective in studying problems on the borderline between discrete mathematics and algebraic topology.