AbstractA fundamental idea in toric topology is that classes of manifolds with well-behaved torus actions (simply, toric spaces) are classified by pairs of simplicial complexes and (non-singular) characteristic maps. In a previous paper, the authors provided a new way to find all characteristic maps on a simplicial complex K(J) obtainable by a sequence of wedgings from K.The main idea was that characteristic maps on K theoretically determine all possible characteristic maps on a wedge of K.We further develop our previous work for classification of toric spaces. For a star-shaped simplicial sphere K of dimension n-1 with m vertices, the Picard number Pic(K) of K is m-n. We call K a seed if K cannot be obtained by wedgings. First, we show that for a fixed positive integer 𝓁, there are at most finitely many seeds of Picard 𝓁 number supporting characteristic maps. As a corollary, the conjecture proposed by V. V. Batyrev in is solved affirmatively.Secondly, we investigate a systematicmethod to find all characteristic maps on K(J) using combinatorial objects called (realizable) puzzles that only depend on a seed K. These two facts lead to a practical way to classify the toric spaces of fixed Picard number.
A new graph invariant arises in toric topology
