Homology of holomorphs of free groups. (Q1421803)

The holomorph of a free group \(F_n\) is the semidirect product \(F_n\circ\Aut(F_n)\). This paper establishes homological stability isomorphisms \(H_i(F_n\circ\Aut(F_n);\mathbb{Q})\to H_i(F_{n+1}\circ\Aut(F_{n+1});\mathbb{Q})\) for \(n>3i/2\) and \(H_i(F_n\circ\Aut(F_n);\mathbb{Z})\to H_i(F_{n+1}\circ\Aut(F_{n+1});\mathbb{Z})\) for \(n\geq 4i+2\), and provides the following explicit calculations for all positive \(n\): (1)~\(H_i(F_n\circ\Aut(F_n);\mathbb{Z}/p)=0\) when \(p\) is an odd prime and \(1\leq i\leq 2\), (2)~\(H_i(F_n\circ\Aut(F_n);\mathbb{Q})=0\) when \(1\leq i\leq 5\), except that \(H_i(F_n\circ\Aut(F_n);\mathbb{Q})=\mathbb{Q}\) when \(i=4\) and \(n=3\) or when \(i=4\) and \(n=4\), and (3)~the twisted homology group \(H_i(F_n\circ\Aut(F_n);\mathbb{Q}^n)=0\) when \(0\leq i\leq 4\), except that \(H_3(F_3\circ\Aut(F_3);\mathbb{Q}^3)=\mathbb{Q}\). Similar results about the homology of \(\Aut(F_n)\) were obtained by \textit{A. Hatcher} and \textit{K. Vogtmann} [J. Lond. Math. Soc., II. Ser. 58, No. 3, 633--655 (1998; Zbl 0922.57001) and Math. Res. Lett. 5, No. 6, 759--780 (1998; Zbl 1040.20042)], using an action of \(\Aut(F_n)\) on a space of marked graphs, called auter space. To obtain his results, the author uses an action of the holomorph on a variant of auter space. Because of the large size of the spaces involved, Maple programs were used to establish the results~(2).