Lipschitz-Killing curvatures of angular partially ordered sets (Q915133)

The author's investigations are motivated by recent work of \textit{J. Cheeger} [J. Diff. Geom. 18, 575-657 (1983; Zbl 0529.58034)] and \textit{J. Cheeger}, \textit{W. Müller}, and \textit{R. Schrader} [Commun. Math. Phys. 92, 405-454 (1984; Zbl 0559.53028)] on the Lipschitz-Killing curvatures of piecewise flat spaces. His main aim is to give a purely combinatorial proof of the results obtained there and to exhibit the combinatorial structures hidden behind the analytic arguments presented in these papers. The main tools are the geometric identities on interior and exterior angles of convex polytopes by \textit{D. M. Y. Sommerville} [Proc. R. Soc. Lond. Ser. A 115, 103-119 (1927); a corrected proof can be found in \textit{M. A. Perles} and \textit{G. C. Shepard}, `Angle sums of convex polytopes' (Math. Scand., in press)] and \textit{P. McMullen} [Math. Proc. Cambridge Philos. Soc. 78, 247-261 (1975; Zbl 0313.52005)]. They are interpreted in terms of the incidence algebra of a locally finite partially ordered set [see \textit{G.-C. Rota}, Z. Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie Verw. Geb. 2, 340- 368 (1964; Zbl 0121.024)]. Then the Chern-Gauss-Bonnet densities and Lipschitz-Killing curvatures for simplicial complexes given by Cheeger, Müller and Schrader (loc. cit.) are extended to cell complexes and described in purely combinatorial terms too. These tools are combined to present combinatorial proofs of the results mentioned above. Additionally, the underlying combinatorial structure which appeared in these investigations is described within an axiomatic frame, called angular partially ordered set. Chern-Gauss-Bonnet densities and Lipschitz-Killing curvatures are defined for angular partially ordered sets and several results known in the simplicial category are generalized to this combinatorial structure.