Homology decompositions for classifying spaces of finite groups (Q676979)

Let \(G\) be a finite group. A homology decomposition of \(BG\), the classifying space of \(G\), is a map \(\text{hocolim }F\rightarrow BG\) which is a mod \(p\) homology isomorphism. Here \(F\) is a functor from \(D\), a small category, to the category of topological spaces such that for each object \(d\) of \(D\), \(F(d)\) has the homotopy type of \(BH\) for some subgroup \(H\) of \(G\). Decomposition formulas are a valuable tool for studying \(BG\) and particular examples have occured repeatedly in the literature. This paper gives three methods of constructing maps of this type, in each case starting from a partially ordered set \(\mathcal C\) of subgroups of \(G\) closed under taking conjugates, and proves that in each case the map constructed is a mod \(p\) homology isomorphism iff the poset \(\mathcal C\) is ample, i.e. if the natural map from the homotopy orbit space of the simplicial complex associated to \(\mathcal C\) to \(BG\) is a mod \(p\) homology isomorphism. The paper gives 9 classes of examples of ample collections of subgroups and shows that the constructions applied to these recover many of the known homology decomposition formulas as well as at least one new one, an extension of the theorem of Swan that \(BN_G(P)\rightarrow BG\) is a mod \(p\) homology isomorphism to the case of a nonabelian Sylow \(p\) subgroup, \(P\) of \(G\).