Simplicial complex

In mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

, a simplicial complex is a topological space

Topological space

Topological spaces are mathematical structures that allow the formal definition of concepts such as convergence, connectedness, and continuity. They appear in virtually every branch of modern mathematics and are a central unifying notion...

 of a certain kind, constructed by "gluing together" point

Point (geometry)

In geometry, topology and related branches of mathematics a spatial point is a primitive notion upon which other concepts may be defined. In geometry, points are zero-dimensional; i.e., they do not have volume, area, length, or any other higher-dimensional analogue. In branches of mathematics...

s, line segment

Line segment

In geometry, a line segment is a part of a line that is bounded by two end points, and contains every point on the line between its end points. Examples of line segments include the sides of a triangle or square. More generally, when the end points are both vertices of a polygon, the line segment...

s, triangle

Triangle

A triangle is one of the basic shapes of geometry: a polygon with three corners or vertices and three sides or edges which are line segments. A triangle with vertices A, B, and C is denoted ....

s, and their n-dimensional counterparts

Simplex

In geometry, a simplex is a generalization of the notion of a triangle or tetrahedron to arbitrary dimension. Specifically, an n-simplex is an n-dimensional polytope which is the convex hull of its n + 1 vertices. For example, a 2-simplex is a triangle, a 3-simplex is a tetrahedron,...

 (see illustration). Simplicial complexes should not be confused with the more abstract notion of a simplicial set

Simplicial set

In mathematics, a simplicial set is a construction in categorical homotopy theory which is a purely algebraic model of the notion of a "well-behaved" topological space...

 appearing in modern simplicial homotopy theory.

Definitions

A simplicial complex is a set of simplices that satisfies the following conditions:

1. Any face of a simplex from is also in .

2. The intersection of any two simplices is a face of both and .

Note that the empty set is a face of every simplex. See also the definition of an abstract simplicial complex

Abstract simplicial complex

In mathematics, an abstract simplicial complex is a purely combinatorial description of the geometric notion of a simplicial complex, consisting of a family of finite sets closed under the operation of taking subsets...

, which loosely speaking is a simplicial complex without an associated geometry.

A simplicial -complex is a simplicial complex where the largest dimension of any simplex in equals k. For instance, a simplicial 2-complex must contain at least one triangle, and must not contain any tetrahedra or higher-dimension simplices.

A pure or homogeneous simplicial k-complex is a simplicial complex where every simplex of dimension less than k is a face of some simplex of dimension exactly k. Informally, a pure 1-complex "looks" like it's made of a bunch of lines, a 2-complex "looks" like it's made of a bunch of triangles, etc. An example of a non-homogeneous complex is a triangle with a line segment attached to one of its vertices.

A facet is any simplex in a complex that is not a face of any larger simplex. (Note the difference from a "face" of a simplex). A pure simplicial complex can be thought of as a complex where all facets have the same dimension.

Sometimes the term face is used to refer to a simplex of a complex, not to be confused with a face of a simplex.

For a simplicial complex embedded in a k-dimensional space, the k-faces are sometimes referred to as its cells. The term cell is sometimes used in a broader sense to denote a set homeomorphic

Homeomorphism

In the mathematical field of topology, a homeomorphism or topological isomorphism or bicontinuous function is a continuous function between topological spaces that has a continuous inverse function. Homeomorphisms are the isomorphisms in the category of topological spaces—that is, they are...

 to a simplex, leading to the definition of cell complex.

The underlying space, sometimes called the carrier of a simplicial complex is the union

Union (set theory)

In set theory, the union of a collection of sets is the set of all distinct elements in the collection. The union of a collection of sets S_1, S_2, S_3, \dots , S_n\,\! gives a set S_1 \cup S_2 \cup S_3 \cup \dots \cup S_n.- Definition :...

 of its simplices.

Closure, star, and link

Let K be a simplicial complex and let S be a collection of simplices in K.

The closure of S (denoted Cl S) is the smallest simplicial subcomplex of K that contains
each simplex in S. Cl S is obtained by repeatedly adding to S each face of every simplex in S.

The star of S (denoted St S) is the set of all simplices in K that have any faces in S. (Note that the star is generally not a simplicial complex itself).

The link of S (denoted Lk S) equals Cl St S - St Cl S.
It is the closed star of S minus the stars of all faces of S.

Algebraic topology

In algebraic topology

Algebraic topology

Algebraic topology is a branch of mathematics which uses tools from abstract algebra to study topological spaces. The basic goal is to find algebraic invariants that classify topological spaces up to homeomorphism, though usually most classify up to homotopy equivalence.Although algebraic topology...

 simplicial complexes are often useful for concrete calculations. For the definition of homology groups of a simplicial complex, one can read the corresponding chain complex

Chain complex

In mathematics, chain complex and cochain complex are constructs originally used in the field of algebraic topology. They are algebraic means of representing the relationships between the cycles and boundaries in various dimensions of some "space". Here the "space" could be a topological space or...

 directly, provided that consistent orientations are made of all simplices. The requirements of homotopy theory lead to the use of more general spaces, the CW complex

CW complex

In topology, a CW complex is a type of topological space introduced by J. H. C. Whitehead to meet the needs of homotopy theory. This class of spaces is broader and has some better categorical properties than simplicial complexes, but still retains a combinatorial naturethat allows for...

es. Infinite complexes are a technical tool basic in algebraic topology

Algebraic topology

Algebraic topology is a branch of mathematics which uses tools from abstract algebra to study topological spaces. The basic goal is to find algebraic invariants that classify topological spaces up to homeomorphism, though usually most classify up to homotopy equivalence.Although algebraic topology...

. See also the discussion at polytope

Polytope

In elementary geometry, a polytope is a geometric object with flat sides, which exists in any general number of dimensions. A polygon is a polytope in two dimensions, a polyhedron in three dimensions, and so on in higher dimensions...

 of simplicial complexes as subspaces of Euclidean space, made up of subsets each of which is a simplex

Simplex

In geometry, a simplex is a generalization of the notion of a triangle or tetrahedron to arbitrary dimension. Specifically, an n-simplex is an n-dimensional polytope which is the convex hull of its n + 1 vertices. For example, a 2-simplex is a triangle, a 3-simplex is a tetrahedron,...

. That somewhat more concrete concept is there attributed to Alexandrov

Pavel Sergeevich Alexandrov

Pavel Sergeyevich Alexandrov , sometimes romanized Aleksandroff or Aleksandrov was a Soviet Russian mathematician...

. Any finite simplicial complex in the sense talked about here can be embedded as a polytope in that sense, in some large number of dimensions. In algebraic topology a compact topological space which is homeomorphic to a the geometric realization of a finite simplicial complex is usually called a polyhedron

Polyhedron

In elementary geometry a polyhedron is a geometric solid in three dimensions with flat faces and straight edges...

 (see , ).

Combinatorics

Combinatorists

Combinatorics

Combinatorics is a branch of mathematics concerning the study of finite or countable discrete structures. Aspects of combinatorics include counting the structures of a given kind and size , deciding when certain criteria can be met, and constructing and analyzing objects meeting the criteria ,...

 often study the f-vector of a simplicial d-complex , which is the integral

Integer

The integers are formed by the natural numbers together with the negatives of the non-zero natural numbers .They are known as Positive and Negative Integers respectively...

 sequence , where _i is the number of -dimensional faces of (by convention, ₀ unless is the empty complex). For instance, if is the boundary of the octahedron

Octahedron

In geometry, an octahedron is a polyhedron with eight faces. A regular octahedron is a Platonic solid composed of eight equilateral triangles, four of which meet at each vertex....

, then its f-vector is (1, 6, 12, 8), and if is the first simplicial complex pictured above, its f-vector is (1, 18, 23, 8, 1). A complete characterization of the possible f-vectors of simplicial complexes is given by the Kruskal-Katona theorem

Kruskal–Katona theorem

In algebraic combinatorics, the Kruskal–Katona theorem gives a complete characterization of the f-vectors of abstract simplicial complexes. It includes as a special case the Erdős–Ko–Rado theorem and can be restated in terms of uniform hypergraphs. The theorem is named after Joseph Kruskal...

.

By using the f-vector of a simplicial d-complex as coefficients of a polynomial

Polynomial

In mathematics, a polynomial is an expression of finite length constructed from variables and constants, using only the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and non-negative integer exponents...

 (written in decreasing order of exponents), we obtain the f-polynomial of . In our two examples above, the f-polynomials would be and , respectively.

Combinatorists are often quite interested in the h-vector of a simplicial complex , which is the sequence of coefficients of the polynomial that results from plugging into the f-polynomial of . Formally, if we write to mean the f-polynomial of , then the h-polynomial of is


and the h-vector of is . We calculate the h-vector of the octahedron boundary (our first example) as follows:


So the h-vector of the boundary of the octahedron is (1,3,3,1). It is not an accident this h-vector is symmetric. In fact, this happens whenever is the boundary of a simplicial polytope

Polytope

In elementary geometry, a polytope is a geometric object with flat sides, which exists in any general number of dimensions. A polygon is a polytope in two dimensions, a polyhedron in three dimensions, and so on in higher dimensions...

 (these are the Dehn-Sommerville equations

Dehn-Sommerville equations

In mathematics, the Dehn–Sommerville equations are a complete set of linear relations between the numbers of faces of different dimension of a simplicial polytope. For polytopes of dimension 4 and 5, they were found by Max Dehn in 1905. Their general form was established by Duncan Sommerville in...

). In general, however, the h-vector of a simplicial complex is not even necessarily positive. For instance, if we take to be the 2-complex given by two triangles intersecting only at a common vertex, the resulting h-vector is (1,3,-2).

A complete characterization of all simplicial polytope h-vectors is given by the celebrated g-theorem of Stanley

Richard P. Stanley

Richard Peter Stanley is the Norman Levinson Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He received his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1971 under the supervision of Gian-Carlo Rota...

, Billera, and Lee.

See also

• Barycentric subdivision
  Barycentric subdivision
  In geometry, the barycentric subdivision is a standard way of dividing an arbitrary convex polygon into triangles, a convex polyhedron into tetrahedra, or, in general, a convex polytope into simplices with the same dimension, by connecting the barycenters of their faces in a specific way.The name...
  
  
• Causal dynamical triangulation
• Polygonal chain
  Polygonal chain
  A polygonal chain, polygonal curve, polygonal path, or piecewise linear curve, is a connected series of line segments. More formally, a polygonal chain P is a curve specified by a sequence of points \scriptstyle called its vertices so that the curve consists of the line segments connecting the...
  
  — 1 dimensional simplicial complex