A characterization of the angle defect and the Euler characteristic in dimension 2 (Q848853)

The ``Descartes-Gauss-Bonnet Theorem'' \(\sum_{v\in M} d(v,M) = 2\pi \chi(M)\) relates the curvature (angle defect or deficiency) \(d(v,M):=2\pi - \sum_{\alpha\ni v} \alpha\) at the vertices \(v\) of a triangulated polyhedral surface \(M\) to the Euler characteristic \(\chi(M)\) of \(M\). The author gives a characterization of the angle defect for simplicial surfaces and shows that variants of that work for two approaches to generalizing \(d(v,M)\) to arbitrary 2-dimensional simplicial complexes, one of which the author has given in [Beitr. Algebra Geom. 39, No. 2, 379--393 (1998; Zbl 0917.52010)]. Simultaneously, a characterization of \(\chi(M)\) is given for such complexes.