Bochner's Method for Cell Complexes and Combinatorial Ricci Curvature

Abstract. In this paper we present a new notion of curvature for cell complexes. For each p , we define a p th combinatorial curvature function, which assigns a number to each p -cell of the complex. The curvature of a p -cell depends only on the relationships between the cell and its neighbors. In the case that p=1 , the curvature function appears to play the role for cell complexes that Ricci curvature plays for Riemannian manifolds. We begin by deriving a combinatorial analogue of Bochner's theorems, which demonstrate that there are topological restrictions to a space having a cell decomposition with everywhere positive curvature. Much of the rest of this paper is devoted to comparing the properties of the combinatorial Ricci curvature with those of its Riemannian avatar.

Authors and Affiliations

1. Department of Mathematics, Rice University, Houston, TX 77251, USA forman@math.rice.edu, , , , , , US

   Forman

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