Homotopy type of the Boolean complex of a Coxeter system. (Q838131)

Let \((W,S)\) be a Coxeter system and regard \(W\) as a poset under the Bruhat order. An element \(\sigma\in W\) is Boolean if its principal (lower) ideal in \(W\) is isomorphic to a Boolean algebra. The Boolean ideal \(\mathbb{B}(W,S)\subseteq W\) is the subposet of Boolean elements. The Boolean complex of \((W,S)\) is the regular cell complex \(\Delta(W,S)\) whose face poset is the simplicial poset \(\mathbb{B}(W,S)\). Let \(G\) be the edge-unlabeled Coxeter graph of a Coxeter system \((W,S)\). Then the poset \(\mathbb{B}(W,S)\) (resp., the complex \(\Delta(W,S)\)) is determined entirely by \(G\) up to isomorphism (resp., up to homotopy). Hence one may denote \(\mathbb{B}(W,S)\) and \(\Delta(W,S)\) simply by \(\mathbb{B}(G)\) and \(\Delta(G)\). For a finite simple graph \(G\) with an edge \(e\), denote by \(G-e\) (resp., \(G/e\), resp., \(G-[e]\)) the graph obtained by deleting the edge \(e\) (resp., by contracting the edge \(e\) and then removing all loops and redundant edges, resp., by removing the edge \(e\) and its incident vertices), denote by \(|G|\) the number of vertices in \(G\). For \(n\geqslant 1\), let \(\delta_n\) be the graph consisting of \(n\) disconnected vertices. Then the main result of the paper is as follows. Theorem. For every non-empty, finite simple graph \(G\), there is an integer \(\beta(G)\) (called the Boolean number of the graph \(G\)) so that the geometric realization \(|\Delta(G)|\) of \(\Delta(G)\) is homotopy equivalent to a wedge sum of \(\beta(G)\) spheres of dimension \(|G|-1\). Moreover, the values \(\beta(G)\) can be computed using the recursive formula \[ \beta(G)=\beta(G-e)+\beta(G/e)+\beta(G-[e]), \] if \(e\) is an edge in \(G\) such that \(G-[e]\) is non-empty, with initial conditions \(\beta(A_2)=1\) and \(\beta(\delta_n)=0\), where \(A_2\) is the graph with two vertices and one edge. By the above theorem, the Boolean numbers \(\beta(G)\) are calculated for all finite and affine irreducible Coxeter systems, as well as for systems with graphs that are disconnected, complete, or star.