A structure theorem for \(RO(C_2)\)-graded Bredon cohomology (Q784244)

The singular cohomology with \(\mathbb{F}_2\)-coefficient of a finite CW-complex decomposes as a sum of shifted copies of the cohomology of a point. This is an immediate consequence of the fact that \(\mathbb{F}_2\) is a field. In this paper the author proves an analogue structure theorem for the cohomology of a finite \(C_2\)-CW-complex. Consider the \(RO(C_2)\)-graded Bredon cohomology of a finite \(C_2\)-CW complex with coefficients in the constant Mackey functor \(\underline{\mathbb{F}_2}\). Let \(\mathbb{M}_2\) denote the \(RO(C_2)\)-graded cohomology of a point and let \(\mathbb{A}_n\) denote the cohomology of the \(n\)-dimensional sphere with antipodal action. The author shows that the cohomology of a finite \(C_2\)-CW complex contains only shifted copies of \(\mathbb{M}_2\) and shifted copies of \(\mathbb{A}_n\) for various \(n\). It is also shown that this cohomological decomposition lifts to a splitting of genuine \(C_2\)-equivariant spectra. This is a nontrivial result for two main reasons: \(\mathbb{M}_2\) is not a field and there are many \(\mathbb{M}_2\)-modules which do not appear as the cohomology of any space. The key ingredients of the proof are the self-injectivity of \(\mathbb{M}_2\), a higher decomposition of \(1\) in \(\mathbb{M}_2\) given by a Toda bracket and a \(C_2\)-equivariant localization theorem. Finally, the author gives an example of a locally finite \(C_2\)-CW-complex (necessarily not finite) for which the structure theorem does not hold.