Topological expansion for posets and the homological $k$-connectivity of random $q$-complexes

TL;DR

This paper extends high dimensional expansion concepts to posets and $q$-complexes, introduces new techniques for homology analysis, and establishes thresholds for connectivity in random $q$-complexes.

Contribution

It develops new methods to analyze homology in $q$-complexes, proves the projective support dimension conjecture, and establishes connectivity thresholds for random $q$-complexes.

Findings

Complete $q$-complexes can have non-trivial homology.

New cone construction determines when homology is trivial.

Sharp threshold for connectivity in random $q$-complexes.

Abstract

We study high dimensional expansion beyond simplicial complexes (posets) and focus on $q$-complexes which are complexes whose basic building blocks are linear spaces. We show that the complete $q$-complex (consists of all subspaces of a given linear space) may have non-trivial homology groups and therefore some techniques for simplicial complexes fail. We develop new techniques to work bypass this. In particular: (i) We describe a new construction of cones and use it to determine when the homology of the complete $q$-complex is trivial. We use this construction to prove the "projective support dimension conjecture" conjectured by Mnukhin and Siemons. (ii) We define topological high dimensional expansion for posets, and show that the complete $q$-complex has linear (in the number of lines) coboundary expansion. (iii) We define the $q$-Linial-Meshulam model of random $q$-complexes and prove a sharp threshold for the connectivity of random $q$-complexes.