Three-Dimensional Pseudomanifolds on Eight Vertices

• Main Authors: Basudeb Datta, Nandini Nilakantan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hindawi Limited 2008-01-01
• Series: International Journal of Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2008/254637

A normal pseudomanifold is a pseudomanifold in which the links of simplices are also pseudomanifolds. So, a normal 2-pseudomanifold triangulates a connected closed 2-manifold. But, normal d-pseudomanifolds form a broader class than triangulations of connected closed d-manifolds for d≥3. Here, we classify all the 8-vertex neighbourly normal 3-pseudomanifolds. This gives a classification of all the 8-vertex normal 3-pseudomanifolds. There are 74 such 3-pseudomanifolds, 39 of which triangulate the 3-sphere and other 35 are not combinatorial 3-manifolds. These 35 triangulate six distinct topological spaces. As a preliminary result, we show that any 8-vertex 3-pseudomanifold is equivalent by proper bistellar moves to an 8-vertex neighbourly 3-pseudomanifold. This result is the best possible since there exists a 9-vertex nonneighbourly 3-pseudomanifold which does not allow any proper bistellar moves.