On commuting and noncommuting complexes

Graphs and abstract algebra (groups, rings, fields, etc.) (05C25) Series and lattices of subgroups (20D30) Arithmetic and combinatorial problems involving abstract finite groups (20D60) Homological methods in group theory (20J05) Simplicial sets and complexes in algebraic topology (55U10)

Abstract: In this paper we study various simplicial complexes associated to the commutative structure of a finite group G. We define NC(G) (resp. C(G)) as the complex associated to the poset of pairwise non-commuting (resp. commuting) sets in G. We observe that NC(G) has only one positive dimensional connected component, which we call BNC(G), and we prove that BNC(G) is simply connected. Our main result is a simplicial decomposition formula for BNC(G) which follows from a result of A. Bjorner, M. Wachs and V. Welker on inflated simplicial complexes. As a corollary, we obtain that if G has a nontrivial center or if G has odd order, then the homology group H_{n-1}(BNC(G)) is nontrivial for every n such that G has a maximal noncommuting set of order n.

Review text

In this article methods of combinatorial topology are applied to the study of simplicial complexes associated with a finite group \(G\). The complexes of interest are defined as follows: \(\text{NC}(G)\) is the complex of chains in the set of subsets of \(G\) containing no pair of commuting elements; \(\text{BNC}(G)\) is the full subcomplex of \(\text{NC}(G)\) on the sets of non-central elements of \(G\). For a prime \(p\), \(\text{NC}_p(G)\) is the full subcomplex on the sets of elements of order \(p\). Similarly, \(C(G)\) (resp. \(C_p(G)\)) is the order complex of the poset of subsets of pairwise commuting elements (of order \(p\)). The primary thrust of the paper is directed toward the subcomplexes of \(\text{NC}(G)\). To begin, the authors prove that \(\text{BNC}(G)\) is simply-connected. A covering space argument shows that \(\text{BNC}(G)\) is not contractible if \(G\) has non-trivial center or \(|G|\) is odd (and \(G\) is not Abelian); in either case there is a non-trivial free action on \(\text{BNC}(G)\). Similar reasoning shows that \(\text{BNC}_p(G)\) is not contractible for \(p\) odd, or for \(p=2\) with \(|G|\) odd or \(|Z(G)|\) even. The authors conjecture that the Euler characteristic of \(\text{BNC}(G)\) is odd for any nonabelian simple group \(G\); if true this assertion would imply the Feit-Thompson theorem that odd-order groups are solvable. The main results arise from application of an unpublished theorem of A.~Björner, M.~Wachs, and V.~Welker on ``blowup or ``inflated simplicial complexes. A blowup complex \(S\) is obtained from a simpler ``core complex \(\overline S\) by replacing each vertex \(v\) with a discrete set \(S_v\). Simplices of \(S\) are obtained by choosing arbitrary elements from the sets \(S_v\) corresponding to vertices of simplices of \(\overline S\). For \(\overline S\) connected, Björner, Wachs, and Welker give a wedge decomposition of the homotopy type of \(S\) in terms of \(\overline S\) and the simplices of \(\overline S\). Here the authors realize \(\text{BNC}(G)\) as a blowup complex, and use the general result to obtain lower bounds on the homology of \(\text{BNC}(G)\). As a corollary, it is shown that \(H_{s-1}(\text{BNC}(G))\not=0\) if \(G\) contains a maximal non-commuting set of size \(s\), again for odd-order groups and groups with nontrivial center. In the special case where commutativity defines a transitive relation on \(G-Z(G)\), \(\text{NC}(G)\) is homotopy equivalent to a bouquet of spheres of dimension \(\text{nc}(G)-1\), where \(\text{nc}(G)\) is the size of a maximal noncommuting set in \(G\). A duality theory is developed which yields some connections between the commuting and non-commuting complexes. The complexes \(C_p(G)\) are shown to be homotopy equivalent to the more familiar complexes \(A_p(G)\) of chains of elementary Abelian \(p\)-subgroups. Then results of Quillen on \(A_p(G)\) yield an estimate on the homotopy connectivity of \(\text{NC}_p(G)\). The homological results are obtained in a more general formulation, involving the notion of ``commuting structure, being a symmetric, reflexive relation on a set. The reviewer remarks that such a commuting structure is essentially just a graph without multiple edges. The commuting and non-commuting complexes of a commuting structure are the clique complexes of the graph and its complement. This is the duality referred to above. The wedge decomposition obtained by the authors is in fact a decomposition of the clique complex of a graph, provided the ``core is connected. For instance the result cited above concerning groups with transitive commutativity relation is in fact an assertion about the clique complex of a complete \(n\)-partite graph, the complement of the graph of an equivalence relation.

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