Shellable tilings on relative simplicial complexes and their h-vectors

Abstract An h-tiling on a finite simplicial complex is a partition of its geometric realization by maximal simplices deprived of several codimension one faces together with possibly their remaining face of highest codimension. In this last case, the tiles are said to be critical. An h-tiling thus induces a partitioning of its face poset by closed or semi-open intervals. We prove the existence of h-tilings on every finite simplicial complex after finitely many stellar subdivisions at maximal simplices. These tilings are moreover shellable. We also prove that the number of tiles of each type used by a tiling, encoded by its h-vector, is determined by the number of critical tiles of each index it uses, encoded by its critical vector. In the case of closed triangulated manifolds, these vectors satisfy some palindromic property. We finally study the behavior of tilings under any stellar subdivision.