Face Numbers and Nongeneric Initial Ideals

Abstract

Certain necessary conditions on the face numbers and Betti numbers of simplicial complexes endowed with a proper action of a prime order cyclic group are established. A notion of colored algebraic shifting is defined and its properties are studied. As an application a new simple proof of the characterization of the flag face numbers of balanced Cohen-Macaulay complexes originally due to Stanley (necessity) and Björner, Frankl, and Stanley (sufficiency) is given. The necessity portion of their result is generalized to certain conditions on the face numbers and Betti numbers of balanced Buchsbaum complexes.