Inside the critical window for cohomology of random k-complexes

Abstract

We prove sharper versions of theorems of Linial-Meshulam and Meshulam-Wallach which describe the behavior for (Z/2)-cohomology of a random k-dimensional simplicial complex within a narrow transition window. In particular, we show that within this window the (k-1)st Betti number is in the limit Poisson distributed. For k=2 we also prove that in an accompanying growth process, with high probability, first cohomology vanishes exactly at the moment when the last isolated (k-1)-simplex gets covered by a k-simplex.