Biconed Graphs, Weighted Forests, and $h$-Vectors of Matroid Complexes

A well-known conjecture of Richard Stanley posits that the $h$-vector of the independence complex of a matroid is a pure ${\mathcal O}$-sequence. The conjecture has been established for various classes but is open for graphic matroids. A biconed graph is a graph with two specified 'coning vertices', such that every vertex of the graph is connected to at least one coning vertex. The class of biconed graphs includes coned graphs, Ferrers graphs, and complete multipartite graphs. We study the $h$-vectors of graphic matroids arising from biconed graphs, providing a combinatorial interpretation of their entries in terms of '$2$-weighted forests' of the underlying graph. This generalizes constructions of Kook and Lee who studied the Möbius coinvariant (the last nonzero entry of the $h$-vector) of graphic matroids of complete bipartite graphs. We show that allowing for partially $2$-weighted forests gives rise to a pure multicomplex whose face count recovers the $h$-vector, establishing Stanley's conjecture for this class of matroids. We also discuss how our constructions relate to a combinatorial strengthening of Stanley's Conjecture (due to Klee and Samper) for this class of matroids.

Greedy weights for matroids

We introduce greedy weights of matroids, inspired by those for linear codes. We show that a Wei duality holds for two of these types of greedy weights for matroids. Moreover we show that in the cases where the matroids involved are associated to linear codes, our definitions coincide with those for codes. Thus our Wei duality is a generalization of that for linear codes given by Schaathun. In the last part of the paper we show how some important chains of cycles of the matroids appearing, correspond to chains of component maps of minimal resolutions of the independence complex of the corresponding matroids. We also relate properties of these resolutions to chainedness and greedy weights of the matroids, and in many cases codes, that appear.

The topology of the external activity complex of a matroid

International audience We prove that the external activity complex Act<(M) of a matroid is shellable. In fact, we show that every linear extension of Las Vergnas's external/internal order <ext/int on M provides a shelling of Act<(M). We also show that every linear extension of Las Vergnas's internal order <int on M provides a shelling of the independence complex IN(M). As a corollary, Act<(M) and M have the same h-vector. We prove that, after removing its cone points, the external activity complex is contractible if M contains U3,1 as a minor, and a sphere otherwise.

Sortable Simplicial Complexes and $t$-Independence Ideals of Proper Interval Graphs

We introduce the notion of sortability and $t$-sortability for a simplicial complex and study the graphs for which their independence complexes are either sortable or $t$-sortable. We show that the proper interval graphs are precisely the graphs whose independence complex is sortable. By using this characterization, we show that the ideal generated by all squarefree monomials corresponding to independent sets of vertices of $G$ of size $t$ (for a given positive integer $t$) has the strong persistence property, when $G$ is a proper interval graph. Moreover, all of its powers have linear quotients.

Collapsibility of Non-Cover Complexes of Graphs

Let $G$ be a graph on the vertex set $V$. A vertex subset $W \subseteq V$ is a cover of $G$ if $V \setminus W$ is an independent set of $G$, and $W$ is a non-cover of $G$ if $W$ is not a cover of $G$. The non-cover complex of $G$ is a simplicial complex on $V$ whose faces are non-covers of $G$. Then the non-cover complex of $G$ is the combinatorial Alexander dual of the independence complex of $G$. Aharoni asked if the non-cover complex of a graph $G$ without isolated vertices is $(|V(G)|-i\gamma(G)-1)$-collapsible where $i\gamma(G)$ denotes the independence domination number of $G$. Extending a result by the second author, who verified Aharoni's question in the affirmative for chordal graphs, we prove that the answer to the question is yes for all graphs.

Matching Complexes of Small Grids

The matching complex $M(G)$ of a simple graph $G$ is the simplicial complex consisting of the matchings on $G$. The matching complex $M(G)$ is isomorphic to the independence complex of the line graph $L(G)$. Braun and Hough introduced a family of graphs $\Delta^m_n$, which is a generalization of the line graph of the $(n \times 2)$-grid graph. In this paper, we show that the independence complex of $\Delta^m_n$ is a wedge of spheres. This gives an answer to a problem suggested by Braun and Hough.

A Note on Independence Complexes of Chordal Graphs and Dismantling

We show that the independence complex of a chordal graph is contractible if and only if this complex is dismantlable (strong collapsible) and it is homotopy equivalent to a sphere if and only if its core is a cross-polytopal sphere. The proof uses the properties of tree models of chordal graphs.