The canonical join complex (Q668081)

Summary: A canonical join representation is a certain minimal ``factorization'' of an element in a finite lattice \(L\) analogous to the prime factorization of an integer from number theory. The expression \(\bigvee A =w\) is the canonical join representation of \(w\) if \(A\) is the unique lowest subset of \(L\) satisfying \(\bigvee A=w\) (where ``lowest'' is made precise by comparing order ideals under containment). Canonical join representations appear in many familiar guises, with connections to comparability graphs and noncrossing partitions. When each element in \(L\) has a canonical join representation, we define the canonical join complex to be the abstract simplicial complex of subsets \(A\) such that \(\bigvee A\) is a canonical join representation. We characterize the class of finite lattices whose canonical join complex is flag, and show how the canonical join complex is related to the topology of \(L\).