Combinatorial groupoids, cubical complexes, and the lovász conjecture

Abstract

This paper lays the foundation for a theory of combinatorial groupoids that allows us to use concepts like "holonomy", "parallel transport", "bundles", "combinatorial curvature", etc. in the context of simplicial (polyhedral) complexes, posets, graphs, polytopes and other combinatorial objects. We introduce a new, holonomy-type invariant for cubical complexes, leading to a combinatorial "Theorema Egregium" for cubical complexes that are non-embeddable into cubical lattices. Parallel transport of Hom-complexes and maps is used as a tool to extend Babson-Kozlov-Lovász graph coloring results to more general statements about nondegenerate maps (colorings) of simplicial complexes and graphs.