Homological stability and densities of generalized configuration spaces (Q2024748)

Homological stability is a feature shared by various spaces of configurations. The prototypical example is that of the \textit{unordered configuration spaces} \[ \mathrm{Conf}_d(X) := \{(x_1,\ldots,x_d) \mid x_i \neq x_j \text{ if }i \neq j\}/\Sigma_d, \] where for certain \(X\) there are stabilisation maps \[ \mathrm{Conf}_d(X) \to \mathrm{Conf}_{d+1}(X) \] which add another point, and induce isomorphisms on homology in a range tending to infinity with \(d\). This example goes back to \textit{V. I. Arnol'd}'s work on braid groups [Math. Notes 5, 138--140 (1969; Zbl 0277.55002); translation from Mat. Zametki 5, 227--231 (1969)], where \(X = \mathbb{C}\) and the stabilisation map adds a point ``near infinity.'' This paper proves such a stability result for Borel-Moore homology when \(X\) is an irreducible scheme of dimension \(\geq 1\), in the more general setting of the generalised configuration spaces \(Z^m_\mathbf{n}(X)\) (Theorem 7.4.1). These consist of points in \(X\), each labelled by one of \(m\) different colours, with the vector \(\mathbf{n} \in \mathbb{Z}^k_{\geq 0}\) encoding that at each point \(x\) in \(X\) there should exist a colour \(k\) so that there are less than \(n_k\) particles with this colour at \(x\). These spaces were popularised by the work of \textit{R. Vakil} and \textit{M. M. Wood} [Duke Math. J. 164, No. 6, 1139--1185 (2015; Zbl 1461.14020); ibid. J. 169, No. 4, 799--800 (2020; Zbl 1442.14053)]. This result is deduced using Koszul duality and factorisation homology from a corresponding stability result for cohomological Chevalley complexes (Theorem 5.1.17). Similar techniques yield a general homological stability for factorisation homology (Theorem 6.5.6), where the crucial hypothesis is that the input coLie-algebra is finite-dimensional. This is an algebro-geometric version of a result of \textit{A. Kupers} and \textit{J. Miller} [Math. Ann. 370, No. 1--2, 209--269 (2018; Zbl 1384.55009)]. The techniques used to obtain these results are then used to study homological densities as in the work of \textit{B. Farb} et al. [Adv. Math. 352, 670--716 (2019; Zbl 1459.57030)]. These concern the number of points over a finite field of an unordered configuration space of a variety, normalised through division by the number of points in the corresponding symmetric power. This paper proves a categorified version of such a result (Theorem A), which can be obtained to yield concrete computations of homological densities (Section 7.6 and 7.7). This paper proves several concrete results that are of interest to a mathematician working on configuration spaces, and constructs a powerful higher-categorical framework for studying related questions in the future.