Some combinatorial properties of flag simplicial pseudomanifolds and spheres

Abstract

A simplicial complex Δ is called flag if all minimal nonfaces of Δ have at most two elements. The following are proved: First, if Δ is a flag simplicial pseudomanifold of dimension d−1, then the graph of Δ (i) is (2d−2)-vertex-connected and (ii) has a subgraph which is a subdivision of the graph of the d-dimensional cross-polytope. Second, the h-vector of a flag simplicial homology sphere Δ of dimension d−1 is minimized when Δ is the boundary complex of the d-dimensional cross-polytope.