Augmented chain complex Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
An augmented chain complex includes an augmentation with . For a nonempty simplicial complex, the augmentation sends every vertex to and the augmented homology in degree zero is its reduced homology.
Triangulate the sphere by the boundary complex of the cross-polytope with simplicial vertices : a face contains at most one simplicial vertex from each antipodal pair. Take its barycentric subdivision. Its simplicial vertices are the nonempty faces of the original complex, and its simplices are strictly nested chains .
Form a quotient complex whose simplicial vertices are pairs , and whose simplices are the images of these chains. No chain contains both and . Moreover a chain of face-orbits lifts uniquely up to simultaneous negation: after choosing a largest face, every smaller face has at most one representative contained in it, because an original face contains no antipodal simplicial vertices. Thus the quotient is an honest simplicial complex, without two different simplices with the same simplicial vertex set. Its realization is homeomorphic to the sphere modulo its antipodal action. This provides a triangulation of Real projective space . The subdivision avoids the duplicate-simplex problem of naively identifying simplicial vertices in the unsubdivided cross-polytope boundary.
The geometric realization of a simplicial complex consists of the filled triangle together with the two extra edges and . Thus the triangle on has only its boundary:
Figure 1.
The vertices, edges and faces of a simplicial complex
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Simplicial subcomplex Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
A simplicial subcomplex is a subfamily that is itself a simplicial complex. In particular, every face of a simplex in also lies in .
Triangulation 2026-10-06
A triangulation of a topological space is a homeomorphism from the realization of a simplicial complex to that space. In three-manifold topology, thickening its one-skeleton and the dual one-skeleton constructs a Heegaard splitting.
Vertex of a simplicial complex Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
An element of the underlying vertex set of an abstract simplicial complex; a simplex is a finite subset of these vertices. In a barycentric subdivision, the vertices are nonempty simplices of the original complex.