Abstract
There are finitely many simplicial complexes (up to isomorphism) with a given number of vertices. Translating this fact to the language of h-vectors, there are finitely many simplicial complexes of bounded dimension with h1=k for any natural number k. In this paper we study the question at the other end of the h-vector: Are there only finitely many (d−1)-dimensional simplicial complexes with hd=k for any given k? The answer is no if we consider general complexes, but we focus on three cases coming from matroids: (i) independence complexes, (ii) broken circuit complexes, and (iii) order complexes of geometric lattices. Surprisingly, the answer is yes in all three cases.
