Right-angularity, flag complexes, asphericity

aspherical manifold Davis-Januszkiewicz space graph product polyhedral product right-angled Artin group right-angled building right-angled Coxeter group

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Groups with a (BN)-pair; buildings (20E42) Braid groups; Artin groups (20F36) Reflection and Coxeter groups (group-theoretic aspects) (20F55) Geometric group theory (20F65) Topological methods in group theory (57M07) Covering spaces and low-dimensional topology (57M10)

Abstract: The "polyhedral product functor" produces a space from a simplicial complex L and a collection of pairs of spaces, {(A(i),B(i))}, where i ranges over the vertex set of L. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for the resulting space to be aspherical. There are two similar constructions, each of which starts with a space X and a collection of subspaces, {X_i} and then produces a new space. We give conditions for the results of these constructions to be aspherical. All three techniques can be used to produce examples of closed aspherical manifolds. Abstract for Corrigenda: This note concerns two refinements to the earlier work by the first author. First, when L is infinite, the definition of polyhedral product needs clarification. Second, the earlier paper omitted some subtle parts of the necessary and sufficient conditions for polyhedral products to be aspherical. Correct versions of these necessary and sufficient conditions are given in the present paper.

Review text

This paper gives three constructions of spaces and obtains conditions in each case for the resulting space to be aspherical. Also, conditions are obtained for the resulting spaces to be closed manifolds. The first one \(\mathcal{Z}_L(\mathbf{A},\mathbf{B})\) is a polyhedral product over a simplicial complex \(L\) of a collection \((\mathbf{A},\mathbf{B})=(A_i,B_i)_{i\in I}\), where \(I\) is the indexing set for vertices of \(L\). \textit{Theorem:} Suppose that (i) each \(A_i\) is aspherical, (ii) when \(i\) corresponds to a `non-coneline' vertex of \(L\), each path component of \(B_i\) is aspherical and its inclusion into \(A_i\) induces a monomorphism of fundamental groups, and, (iii) \(L\) is a flag complex. Then \(\mathcal{Z}_L(\mathbf{A},\mathbf{B})\) is aspherical. In the second construction, the author starts with a space \(X\) with a `mirror structure', which is a collection \(\mathcal{M}=\{X_i\}_{i\in I}\) of closed subspaces of \(X\). The nerve \(N(\mathcal{M})\) of \(\mathcal{M}\) is the simplicial complex associated to the partially ordered set of finite subsets \(J\subset I\) for which \(X_J:=\cap_{j\in J}X_j\neq \empty\) (\(X_\emptyset:=X\)). It is a `corner structure' if \(I=I(n)= \{0,1,\cdots,n\}\) and \(X_J:\neq \emptyset\) all \(J\subset I(n)\) or, equivalently, \(N(\mathcal{M})\) is an \(n\)-simplex. If \(p:\widetilde{X}\to X\) is the universal covering projection, the \(p\) induces a mirror structure \(\widetilde{\mathcal{M}}\) on \(\widetilde{X}\) whose members are the path-components of inverse images the \(X_i, i\in I\). Suppose that \((W,S)\) is a spherical Coxeter system where the set \(S\) of fundamental involutions is indexed by \(I\). The space \(\mathcal{U}(W,X)\) is defined as a quotient \(W\times X/\sim\) where \((w,x)\sim (w',x')\) if \(x=x'\) and \(w'w^{-1}\in W_{I(x)}\); here \(I(x):=\{i\in I\mid x\in X_i\}\) and \(W_J\) is the subgroup of \(W\) generated by \(s_j\in S,j\in J.\) Let \(\mathcal{M}=\{X_i\}_{i\in I(n)}\) be a corner of \(X\) and let \((W,S)\) be a spherical Coxeter system. It is shown that \(\mathcal{U}(W,X)\) is aspherical if and only if the following conditions hold: (i)' \(X\) is aspherical, (ii)' every path component of inverse image of \(X_J\) in the universal cover \(\widetilde{X}\) is acyclic for all \(J\subset I(n)\), (iii)' the nerve \(N(\widetilde{\mathcal{M}})\) is a flag complex. The third construction is a certain space which is a `pull-back' \(f^*(X)\), where \(X\) is a space with corner structure, \(f: L\to \Delta\) of colouring of a simplicial complex \(L\) (\(\Delta\) being the \(n\)-simplex with vertex set labelled by \(I(n)\)). The map \(f\) codes the gluing data for pasting together copies of \(X\) to obtain \(f^*(X)\). The space \(f^*(X)\) is aspherical if conditions (i)', (ii)', (iii)' above hold along with the requirement that \(L\) be a flag complex. The paper is very well written and contains plenty of motivating and illustrative examples.

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