On the topology of no \(k\)-equal spaces (Q6107818)

The \(n\)-th no \(k\)-equal space of a topological space consists of the collection of all sets of \(n\) points on \(X\) such that no \(k\) of them are equal. This space was first studied by Björner, Lovász and Yao from the perspective of complexity theory [\textit{A. Björner} et al., ``Linear decision trees: volume estimates and topological bounds'', in: Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing. 170--177 (1992)]. The Betti numbers of this space were first determined by \textit{A. Björner} and \textit{V. Welker} [Adv. Math. 110, No. 2, 277--313 (1995; Zbl 0845.57020)]. The main result of the present paper is that the rank of the \((k-2)\)-dimensional homology of the no \(k\)-equal space of \({\mathbb R}\) is equal to the number of facets in a \(k\)-dimensional spanning tree of the \(k\)-skeleton of the \(n\)-dimensional hypercube.