Cycle-free chessboard complexes and symmetric homology of algebras

Chessboard complexes and their relatives have been one of important recurring themes of topological combinatorics. Closely related ``cycle-free chessboard complexes'' have been recently introduced by Ault and Fiedorowicz as a tool for computing symmetric analogues of the cyclic homology of algebras. We study connectivity properties of these complexes and prove a result that confirms a strengthened conjecture of Ault and Fiedorowicz.