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Volkmar Welker

Publications and source records attributed to Volkmar Welker.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

On the vanishing of discrete singular cubical homology for graphs

We prove that if G is a graph without 3-cycles and 4-cycles, then the discrete cubical homology of G is trivial in dimension d, for all d\ge 2. We also construct a sequence { G_d } of graphs such that this homology is non-trivial in dimension d for d\ge 1. Finally, we show that the discrete cubical homology induced by certain coverings of G equals the ordinary singular homology of a 2-dimensional cell complex built from G, although in general it differs from the discrete cubical homology of the graph as a whole.

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Higher dimensional connectivity and minimal degree of random graphs with an eye towards minimal free resolutions

In this note we define and study graph invariants generalizing to higher dimension the maximum degree of a vertex and the vertex-connectivity (our $0$-dimensional cases). These are known to coincide almost surely in any regime for Erdoes-Renyi random graphs. We show the same in the one dimensional case for a middle density regime and show the easier inequality for all dimensions in the same regime. Our original motivation comes from the study of minimal free resolutions of Stanley-Reisner rings of clique complexes of graphs in commutative algebra, In that setting the higher dimensional vertex connectivities determine the lengths of the strands. Through our results we aim to replace (asymptotically) vertex connectivity by a simpler invariant.

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The Varchenko Determinant for Oriented Matroids

We generalize the Varchenko matrix of a hyperplane arrangement to oriented matroids. We show that the celebrated determinant formula for the Varchenko matrix, first proved by Varchenko, generalizes to oriented matroids. It follows that the determinant only depends on the matroid underlying the oriented matroid and analogous formulas hold for cones in oriented matroids. We follow a proof strategy for the original Varchenko formula first suggested by Denham and Hanlon. Besides several technical lemmas this strategy also requires a topological result on supertopes which is of independent interest. We show that a supertope considered as a subposet of the tope poset has a contractible order complex.

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Homology groups of cubical sets with connections

Toward defining commutative cubes in all dimensions, Brown and Spencer introduced the notion of "connection" as a new kind of degeneracy. In this paper, for a cubical set with connections, we show that the connections generate an acyclic subcomplex of the chain complex of the cubical set. In particular, our results show that the homology groups of a cubical set with connections are independent of whether we normalize by the connections or we do not, that is, connections do not contribute to any nontrivial cycle in the homology groups of the cubical set.

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Lovasz-Saks-Schrijver ideals and coordinate sections of determinantal varieties

Motivated by questions in algebra and combinatorics we study two ideals associated to a simple graph G: --> the Lovasz-Saks-Schrijver ideal defining the d-dimensional orthogonal representations of the graph complementary to G and --> the determinantal ideal of the (d+1)-minors of a generic symmetric with 0s in positions prescribed by the graph G. In characteristic 0 these two ideals turns out to be closely related and algebraic properties such as being radical, prime or a complete intersection transfer from the Lovasz-Saks-Schrijver ideal to the determinantal ideal. For Lovasz-Saks-Schrijver ideals we link these properties to combinatorial properties of G and show that they always hold for d large enough. For specific classes of graph, such a forests, we can give a complete picture and classify the radical, prime and complete intersection Lovasz-Saks-Schrijver ideals.

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Discrete Cubical and Path Homologies of Graphs

In this paper we study and compare two homology theories for (simple and undirected) graphs. The first, which was developed by Barcelo, Caprano, and White, is based on graph maps from hypercubes to the graph. The second theory was developed by Grigor'yan, Lin, Muranov, and Yau, and is based on paths in the graph. Results in both settings imply that the respective homology groups are isomorphic in homological dimension one. We show that, for several infinite classes of graphs, the two theories lead to isomorphic homology groups in all dimensions. However, we provide an example for which the homology groups of the two theories are not isomorphic at least in dimensions two and three. We establish a natural map from the cubical to the path homology groups which is an isomorphism in dimension one and surjective in dimension two. Again our example shows that in general the map is not surjective in dimension three and not injective in dimension two. In the process we develop tools to compute the homology groups for both theories in all dimensions.

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On the lattice of subracks of the rack of a finite group

In this paper we initiate the study of racks from the combined perspective of combinatorics and finite group theory. A rack R is a set with a self-distributive binary operation. We study the combinatorics of the partially ordered set {\cal R}(R) of all subracks of R with inclusion as the order relation. Groups G with the conjugation operation provide an important class of racks. For the case R = G we show that -> the order complex of {\cal R}(R) has the homotopy type of a sphere, -> the isomorphism type of {\cal R}(R) determines if G is abelian, nilpotent, supersolvable, solvable or simple, -> {\cal R}(R) is graded if and only if G is abelian, G = S_3, G = D_8 or G = Q_8. In addition, we provide some examples of subracks R of a group G for which {\cal R}(R) relates to well studied combinatorial structures. In particular, the examples show that the order complex of {\cal R}(R) for general R is more complicated than in the case R = G.

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The poset of proper divisibility

We study the partially ordered set $P(a_1,\ldots, a_n)$ of all multidegrees $(b_1,\dots,b_n)$ of monomials $x_1^{b_1}\cdots x_n^{b_n}$ which properly divide $x_1^{a_1}\cdots x_n^{a_n}$. We prove that the order complex $Δ(P(a_1,\dots,a_n))$ of $P(a_1,\ldots a_n)$ is (non-pure) shellable, by showing that the order dual of $P(a_1,\ldots,a_n)$ is $\mathrm{CL}$-shellable. Along the way, we exhibit the poset $P(4,4)$ as a new example of a poset with $\mathrm{CL}$-shellable order dual that is not $\mathrm{CL}$-shellable itself. For $n = 2$ we provide the rank of all homology groups of the order complex $Δ\left( P(a_1,a_2) \right)$. Furthermore, we give a succinct formula for the Euler characteristic of $Δ\left( P(a_1,a_2) \right)$.

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Asymptotic syzygies of Stanley-Reisner rings of iterated subdivisions

Inspired by recent results of Ein, Lazarsfeld, Erman and Zhou on the non-vanishing of Betti numbers of high Veronese subrings, we describe the behaviour of the Betti numbers of Stanley-Reisner rings associated with iterated barycentric or edgewise subdivisions of a given simplicial complex. Our results show that for a simplicial complex $Δ$ of dimension $d-1$ and for $1\leq j\leq d-1$ the number of $0$'s the j-th linear strand of the minimal free resolution of the r-th barycentric or edgewise subdivision is bounded above only in terms of $d$ and $j$ (and independently of $r$).

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On the ideal of orthogonal representations of a graph in $\mathbb{R}^2$

In this paper, we study orthogonal representations of simple graphs $G$ in $\mathbb{R}^d$ from an algebraic perspective in case $d = 2$. Orthogonal representations of graphs, introduced by Lovász, are maps from the vertex set to $\mathbb{R}^d$ where non-adjacent vertices are sent to orthogonal vectors. We exhibit algebraic properties of the ideal generated by the equations expressing this condition and deduce geometric properties of the variety of orthogonal embeddings for $d=2$ and $\mathbb{R}$ replaced by an arbitrary field. In particular, we classify when the ideal is radical and provide a reduced primary decomposition if $\sqrt{-1} \not\in K$. This leads to a description of the variety of orthogonal embeddings as a union of varieties defined by prime ideals. In particular, this applies to the motivating case $K = \mathbb{R}$.

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The Buchberger resolution

We define the Buchberger resolution, which is a graded free resolution of a monomial ideal in a polynomial ring. Its construction uses a generalization of the Buchberger graph and encodes much of the combinatorics of the Buchberger algorithm. The Buchberger resolution is a cellular resolution that coincides with the Scarf resolution for generic monomial ideals, which is the case when it is minimal. The simplicial complex underlying the Buchberger resolution is of interest for its own sake and its combinatorics is not fully understood. We close with a conjecture on the clique complex of the Buchberger graph.

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A Gorenstein simplicial complex for symmetric minors

We show that the ideal generated by the $(n-2)$ minors of a general symmetric $n$ by $n$ matrix has an initial ideal that is the Stanley-Reisner ideal of the boundary complex of a simplicial polytope and has the same Betti numbers.

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Noncrossing sets and a Graßmann associahedron

We study a natural generalization of the noncrossing relation between pairs of elements in [n] to k-tuples in [n] that was first considered by Petersen, Pylyavskyy, Speyer (2010). We give an alternative approach to their result that the flag simplicial complex on $\binom{[n]}{k}$ induced by this relation is a regular, unimodular and flag triangulation of the order polytope of the poset given by the product $[k]\times[n-k]$ of two chains (also called Gelfand-Tsetlin polytope), and that it is the join of a simplex and a sphere (that is, it is a Gorenstein triangulation). We then observe that this already implies the existence of a flag simplicial polytope generalizing the dual associahedron, whose Stanley-Reisner ideal is an initial ideal of the Graßmann-Plücker ideal, while previous constructions of such a polytope did not guarantee flagness nor reduced to the dual associahedron for k=2. On our way we provide general results about order polytopes and their triangulations. We call the simplicial complex the noncrossing complex, and the polytope derived from it the dual Graßmann associahedron. We extend results of Petersen, Pylyavskyy, Speyer (2010) showing that the non-crossing complex and the Graßmann associahedron naturally reflect the relations between Graßmannians with different parameters, in particular the isomorphism $G_{k,n} \cong G_{n-k,n}$. Moreover, our approach allows us to show that the adjacency graph of the noncrossing complex admits a natural acyclic orientation that allows us to define a Graßmann-Tamari order on maximal noncrossing families. Finally, we look at the precise relation of the noncrossing complex and the weak separability complex of Leclerc, Zelevinsky (1998) and show that the weak separability complex is the cyclically invariant part of the noncrossibg complex.

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Discrete Morse theory for moment-angle complexes of pairs (D^n,S^{n-1})

For a finite simplicial complex K and a CW-pair (X,A), there is an associated CW-complex Z_K(X,A), known as a polyhedral product. We apply discrete Morse theory to a particular CW-structure on the n-sphere moment-angle complexes Z_K(D^{n}, S^{n-1}). For the class of simplicial complexes with vertex-decomposable duals, we show that the associated n-sphere moment-angle complexes have the homotopy type of wedges of spheres. As a corollary we show that a sufficiently high suspension of any restriction of a simplicial complex with vertex-decomposable dual is homotopy equivalent to a wedge of spheres.

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The Golod property for products and high symbolic powers of monomial ideals

We show that for any two proper monomial ideals I and J in the polynomial ring S = k[x_1, ..., x_n] the ring S/IJ is Golod. We also show that if I is squarefree then for large enough k the quotient S/I^{(k)} of S by the kth symbolic power of I is Golod. As an application we prove that the multiplication on the cohomology algebra of some classes of moment-angle complexes is trivial.

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On partial barycentric subdivision

The lth partial barycentric subdivision is defined for a (d-1)-dimensional simplicial complex Δand studied along with its combinatorial, geometric and algebraic aspects. We analyze the behavior of the f- and h-vector under the lth partial barycentric subdivision extending previous work of Brenti and Welker on the standard barycentric subdivision -- the case l = 1. We discuss and provide properties of the transformation matrices sending the f- and h-vector of Δto the f- and h-vector of its lth partial barycentric subdivision. We conclude with open problems.

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Commutative Algebra of Statistical Ranking

A model for statistical ranking is a family of probability distributions whose states are orderings of a fixed finite set of items. We represent the orderings as maximal chains in a graded poset. The most widely used ranking models are parameterized by rational function in the model parameters, so they define algebraic varieties. We study these varieties from the perspective of combinatorial commutative algebra. One of our models, the Plackett-Luce model, is non-toric. Five others are toric: the Birkhoff model, the ascending model, the Csiszar model, the inversion model, and the Bradley-Terry model. For these models we examine the toric algebra, its lattice polytope, and its Markov basis.

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A deformation of the Orlik-Solomon algebra

A deformation of the Orlik-Solomon algebra of a matroid M is defined as a quotient of the free associative algebra over a commutative ring R with 1. It is shown that the given generators form a Groebner basis and that after suitable homogenization the deformation and the Orlik-Solomon have the same Hilbert series as R-algebras. For supersolvable matroids, equivalently fiber type arrangements, there is a quadratic Groebner basis and hence the algebra is Koszul

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