Cell Complexes  

In General > s.a. [topology]; CW-Complex.
$ Topological p-cell: A space homeomorphic to (the interior of) a p-disk.
$ Affine p-cell: A bounded convex polygon.
$ Finite, regular cell complex: A finite set of non-empty pairwise disjoint open cells, such that (a) The closure of each cell is homeomorphic to a ball and its boundary to a sphere in some dimension, and (b) The boundary of each cell is a union of cells.
* Applications: Used in math to define homology theories (simplicial, cubical); For physics, see below.
* Relationships: Cell complexes can be PL-manifolds, but it is not possible to check if a given 4D one is a PL-manifold or not.

Properties and Operations on Cell Complexes > s.a. euler number.
* Duality: An operation which produces a new cell complex * starting from any given complex , by associating with each k-dimensional cell in a (nk)-dimensional dual cell *, whose boundary consists of the duals of all cells which have on their boundary.

Simplicial Complex > s.a. Link of a Vertex; manifolds; simplex; Skeleton.
* Idea: A cell complex in which the cells are simplices; One of the most widely used types.
$ Def: A simplicial complex in Rn is a collection K of simplices, such that (1) for all in K every face of is also in K; (2) for all and in K, is a face of both and , unless = Ø.
* Abstract: A collection S of finite non-empty sets such that all the non-empty subsets of an element of S also belong to S; If A S then for all B 2A with B Ø, B S; Every abstract simplicial complex has a unique representation as a simplicial complex, up to a linear isomorphism.
* Duality: The dual of a simplicial complex is a Voronoi complex.
* And manifolds: The polyhedron of a simplicial complex is a topological manifold iff the link of each cell has the homology of a sphere, and the link of every vertex is simply connected [@ in Thurston 97, p121].
* Saturated: A shellable complex with maximal modular homology.
@ Discrete differential geometry: Kheyfets et al PRD(89); Ambjørn et al NPB(97)ht/96 [4D, integral invariants and curvature]; Korepanov n.SI/00 [moves, curvature]; > s.a. discrete geometry.
@ Related topics: Korepanov JNMP(01)m.GT/00 [invariants of PL-manifolds]; Brown et al DM(04) [k-polynomial and k-fractal]; Mnukhin & Siemons JCTA(05) [saturated]; Hachimori DM(08) [2D, decompositions]; > s.a. graph [neighborhood complex], harmonic maps, morse functions.
@ And physics: Oriti gq/05-in [quantum gravity]; > s.a. BF theories; computational physics; regge calculus; types of quantum field theories [discrete]; types of spacetimes.

References > s.a. tiling [cellular decomposition of manifolds, including in physics, froth].
@ General: Fritsch & Piccinini 90.
@ Related topics: Forman Top(98) [Witten-Morse theory].


Main pageAbbreviationsJournalsCommentsOther sitesAcknowledgements
Send feedback and suggestions to bombelli at olemiss.edu – Modified 22 jun 2008