A note on the homotopy type of the Alexander dual

DOI10.1007/S00454-014-9606-5MaRDI QIDQ742818zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Jorge Tomás Rodríguez, Elias Gabriel Minian

Publication date 19 September 2014

Published in Discrete \& Computational Geometry (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1206.3368

zbMATH Keywords

Alexander dualityBier spheresdeleted joinshomotopy typeslatticessimplicial complexes

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Partial orders, general (06A06) Polyhedral manifolds (52B70) Classification of homotopy type (55P15) Abstract complexes in algebraic topology (55U05) General topology of complexes (57Q05) Simple homotopy type, Whitehead torsion, Reidemeister-Franz torsion, etc. (57Q10) Triangulating manifolds (57Q15)

Abstract: We investigate the homotopy type of the Alexander dual of a simplicial complex. In general the homotopy type of K does not determine the homotopy type of its dual K*. Moreover, one can construct for each finitely presented group G, a simply connected simplicial complex K with fundamental group isomorphic to G. We study sufficient conditions on K for K* to have the homotopy type of a sphere. We also extend the simplicial Alexander duality to the context of reduced lattices.

Review text

Let \(K\) be a finite simplicial complex and \(K^*\) its Alexander dual with respect to some ground set \(V\) containing all the vertices of \(K\). Alexander duality asserts that \(\widetilde{H}_i(K)\cong \widetilde{H}^{n-i-3}(K^*)\) where \(n\) is the size of \(V\). It is well known that while the homology of \(K\) determines the homology of \(K^*\), the homotopy type of \(K\) does not determine the homotopy type of \(K^*\). In the paper under review, the authors are easily able to show that for every finitely presented group \(G\), there exists a simply-connected complex \(K\) such that \(K^*\) with respect to some ground set \(V\) satisfies \(\pi_1(K^*)\cong G\). They go on to give an example of a simplicial complex with the homotopy type of a sphere whose dual is not homotopy equivalent to a sphere. However, if \(K\) simplicially collapses to the boundary of a simplex, then the authors are able to show that \(K^*\) is homotopy equivalent to a sphere. The paper concludes with applications of their Alexander duality theory to certain constructions on reduced lattices.

Recommendations

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Cites work

• Alexander duality for projections of polytopes
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• Note: Combinatorial Alexander duality -- a short and elementary proof
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• Using the Borsuk-Ulam theorem. Lectures on topological methods in combinatorics and geometry. Written in cooperation with Anders Björner and Günter M. Ziegler

Cited in

(5)

• Note: Combinatorial Alexander duality -- a short and elementary proof
• Homology groups of simplicial complements
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3980012 (Why is no real title available?)
• Vertex decomposability of complexes associated to forests
• A generalization of a result of Dong and Santos-Sturmfels on the Alexander dual of spheres and balls

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