Enumerative properties of triangulations of spherical bundles over S^1

Abstract

We give a complete characterization of all possible pairs (v,e), where v is the number of vertices and e is the number of edges, of any simplicial triangulation of an S^k-bundle over S^1. The main point is that Kuhnel's triangulations of S^{2k+1} x S^1 and the nonorientable S^{2k}-bundle over S^1 are unique among all triangulations of (n-1)-dimensional homology manifolds with first Betti number nonzero, vanishing second Betti number, and 2n+1 vertices.