English

Homology Generators and Relations for the Ordered Configuration Space of a Star Graph

Algebraic Topology 2026-02-26 v3 Category Theory

Abstract

We study the ordered configuration spaces of star graphs. Inspired by the representation stability results of Church--Ellenberg--Farb for the ordered configuration space of a manifold and the edge stability results of An--Drummond-Cole--Knudsen for the unordered configuration space of a graph, we determine how the ordered configuration space of a star graph with kk leaves behaves as we add particles at the leaves. We show that, as a module over the combinatorial category FIk,o_{k, o}, the first homology of this ordered configuration space is finitely generated by 44 particles for k=3k=3, by 33 particles for k=4k=4, and by 22 particles for k5k\ge 5. Additionally, we prove that every relation among homology classes can be described by relations on at most 66 particles for k=4k=4, at most 55 particles when k=5k=5, at most 44 particles when k=6k=6, and at most 33 particles for k7k\ge 7, while proving that adding particles always introduces new relations when k=3k=3. This proves that there is no finite universal presentation for the homology of ordered configuration spaces of graphs.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2401.13821,
  title  = {Homology Generators and Relations for the Ordered Configuration Space of a Star Graph},
  author = {Nicholas Wawrykow},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.13821},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

28 pages, 21 figures