Normal Rees algebras arising from vertex decomposable simplicial complexes

Abstract: We show that for a vertex decomposable simplicial complex $\Delta$, the Rees algebra of $I_{\Delta^{\vee}}$ is a normal Cohen-Macaulay domain. As consequences, we show that any squarefree weakly polymatroidal ideal is normal and we obtain normal ideals among several interesting families of monomial ideals such as cover ideals of graphs and edge ideals of hypergraphs. Moreover, based on a construction on simplicial complexes given by Biermann and Van Tuyl [2], we present families of normal ideals attached to any squarefree monomial ideal.