Bounds for the Betti numbers of successive stellar subdivisions of a simplex

Abstract

We give a bound for the Betti numbers of the Stanley-Reisner ring of a stellar subdivision of a Gorenstein* simplicial complex by applying unprojection theory. From this we derive a bound for the Betti numbers of iterated stellar subdivisions of the boundary complex of a simplex. The bound depends only on the number of subdivisions, and we construct examples which prove that it is sharp.