Homological invariants of Edge Ideals associated to powers of cycles

Source abstract

Let $G_{n,m}=\overline{\C_n^{[m]}}$, where $\C_n^{[m]}$ denotes the closed $m$th power of the $n$-cycle. We study the graded Betti numbers and homological invariants of the edge ring of $G_{n,m}$ in the range $n\geq 3m+1$. These graphs form a natural family for the study of edge rings whose regularity can be compared explicitly with the induced matching number. In particular, for $n\geq4m+1$, the graph $G_{n,m}$ has induced matching number one, whereas its edge ring has regularity two. Our approach is based on a characterization of the homology of the induced subcomplexes of the independence complex $Δ(G_{n,m})$. We introduce a family $\mathcal{S}_V(k,m)$ of vertex subsets characterized by their successive gaps around the cycle and show that, for $W\in\mathcal{S}_V(k,m)$, the induced subcomplex $Δ[W]$ has the homotopy type of $\mathbb{S}^1$, whereas for $W\notin\mathcal{S}_V(k,m)$ all its positive-dimensional reduced homology groups vanish. Combining this characterization with Hochster's formula and an explicit enumeration of $\mathcal{S}_V(k,m)$, we obtain a closed formula for the graded Betti numbers in the second strand. We further determine the extremal Betti number, regularity, and projective dimension of the edge ring of $G_{n,m}$. Finally, we compute the $f$- and $h$-vectors of the independence complex and use the Hilbert series to determine the graded Betti numbers in the linear strand. The case $m=2$ recovers the corresponding results for complements of squares of cycles obtained in~\cite{RatherSquare}.