Representation stability for homotopy groups of configuration spaces (Q1707512)

From MaRDI portal
scientific article
Language Label Description Also known as
English
Representation stability for homotopy groups of configuration spaces
scientific article

    Statements

    Representation stability for homotopy groups of configuration spaces (English)
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    3 April 2018
    0 references
    Let FI be the category of finite sets and injections. An FI-\(\mathbb{Z}\)-module is a functor from FI to the category of abelian groups and a co-FI-space is a contravariant functor from FI to the category of topological spaces. In this paper the authors establish a general result (Theorem 1.5) for \(1\)-connected co-FI-spaces \(X\) of finite type: the cohomology groups \(H^i(X;\mathbb{Z})\) are finitely generated FI-\(\mathbb{Z}\)-modules for all \(i\) if and only if so are the dual homotopy groups \(\text{Hom}_{\mathbb{Z}}(\pi_n(X),\mathbb{Z})\) and \(\text{Ext}^1_{\mathbb{Z}}(\pi_n(X),\mathbb{Z})\) for all \(i\). They apply this result to the cohomology groups of ordered configuration spaces, which were proved to be finitely generated as FI-\(\mathbb{Z}\)-modules in [\textit{T. Church} et al., Geom. Topol. 18, No. 5, 2951--2984 (2014; Zbl 1344.20016)], to obtain the results that we now describe. Let \(M\) be a \(1\)-connected manifold of dimension at least \(3\) and let \(C_k(M)\) be the unordered configuration space of \(k\) points in the manifold \(M\). The fundamental group \(\pi_1(C_k(M))\) is isomorphic to the symmetric group \(S_k\) and its action on the higher homotopy groups \(\pi_i(C_k(M))\) \(i\geq 2\) agrees with the \(S_k\)-action on \(\pi_i(F_k(M))\) induced by the action of \(S_k\) on the ordered configuration space \(F_k(M)\) by permuting the ordering of the points. In Theorem 1.3 the authors obtain that, for \(i\geq2\), the FI-\(\mathbb{Z}\)-modules \(\text{Hom}_{\mathbb{Z}}(\pi_i(C_k(M)),\mathbb{Z})\) and \(\text{Ext}^1_{\mathbb{Z}}(\pi_i(C_k(M)),\mathbb{Z})\) are finitely generated. Furthermore, working over \(\mathbb{Q}\), they prove (Theorem 1.2) that the dual rational homotopy groups \(\text{Hom}_{\mathbb{Z}}(\pi_n(M),\mathbb{Q})\) are representation stable in the sense of [\textit{T. Church} and \textit{B. Farb}, Adv. Math. 245, 250--314 (2013; Zbl 1300.20051)] with stable range \(k\geq 4(i-1)\). The stable range can be improved to \(k\geq 2(i-1)\) for non-compact manifolds \(M\). Other applications of Theorem 1.5 include the free Lie and Gerstenhaber algebras.
    0 references
    dual homotopy groups
    0 references
    configuration spaces
    0 references
    representation stability
    0 references
    FI-modules
    0 references

    Identifiers

    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references