Balanced complexes and complexes without large missing faces (Q691157)

This paper is about counting the faces of simplicial complexes. Two kinds of complexes are examined: complexes without missing faces, and those whose missing faces are only \(1\)-dimensional (flag complexes). The authors give lower bounds for complexes with non-vanishing top homology and no missing faces. The other results need additional conditions on the link of faces (Cohen-Macaulay complexes). Thus ``the \(l\)-skeleton of a flag \((d-1)\)-dimensional \(2\)-CM complex is \(2(d-l)\)-CM, while the \(l\)-skeleton of a flag piecewise linear \((d-1)\)-sphere is \(2(d-l)\)-homotopy CM. In addition, tight lower bounds on the face numbers of \(2\)-CM balanced complexes in terms of their dimension and the number of vertices are established''.