Shellable quasi-forests and their \(h\)-triangles (Q663317)

Let \(\Delta\) be a simplicial complex over the vertex set \(\{1,\dots, n\}\). It is called sequentially Cohen-Macaulay if its face ring \(K[\Delta] = S/I(\Delta)\), where \(S=K[x_1,\dots, x_n]\) a polynomial ring over a field \(K\) and the squarefree monomial ideal \(I(\Delta) = (x_{i_1}\cdots x_{i_k} : \{i_1,\dots, i_k\}\notin\Delta)\), is sequentially Cohen-Macaulay. Combinatorial characterization of sequentially Cohen-Macaulayness of face rings is a central issue in combinatorial commutative algebra and has been studied in view of combinatorial notions such as shellability and algebraic shifting. This paper gives a new insight. A facet \(F\in\Delta\) is called a leaf if there is a facet \(G(\neq F)\) of \(\Delta\) such that \(H\cap F \subset G\cap F\) for all facets \(H\) of \(\Delta\) with \(H\neq F\). \(\Delta\) is called a quasi-forest if there is an ordering \(F_1,F_2,\dots, F_s\) of the facets such that \(F_j\) is a leaf of the subcomplex \(\langle F_1,\dots, F_j\rangle\) for each \(1<j\leq s\). In this paper, the authors show that a quasi-forest is sequentially Cohen-Macaulay if and only if it is shellable (Theorem~3.1).