Connected sums of sphere products and minimally non-Golod complexes

Abstract: We show that if the moment-angle complex $\mathcal{Z}_K$ associated to a simplicial complex $K$ is homotopy equivalent to a connected sum of sphere products with two spheres in each product, then $K$ decomposes as the simplicial join of an $n$-simplex $\Delta^n$ and a minimally non-Golod complex. In particular, we prove that $K$ is minimally non-Golod for every moment-angle complex $\mathcal{Z}_K$ homeomorphic to a connected sum of two-fold products of spheres, answering a question of Grbi\'c, Panov, Theriault and Wu.