Free actions on products of spheres at high dimensions (Q1954175)

The paper under review deals with the classical conjecture in transformation group theory which says that for a prime \(p\) if \(G = (\mathbb{Z}/p)^{r}\) acts freely on a finite CW complex \(X\) homotopy equivalent to \(S^{n_1} \times \cdots \times S^{n_k}\), then \(r \leq k\). The authors prove a special case of this conjecture which goes as follows. Let \(p\) be a prime and \(k\), \(l\) positive integers and let \(G = (\mathbb{Z}/p)^{r}\). Then there exists a positive integer \(N\) which depends only on \(k\), \(l\) and \(G\) such that if \(G\) acts freely and cellularly on a finite CW complex \(X\) homotopy equivalent to \(S^{n_1} \times \cdots \times S^{n_k}\) where \(n_{i} \geq N\) and \(|n_i - n_j| \leq l\) for all \(i\), \(j\), then \(r \leq k\). Other special cases of the conjecture have been proven before. The case \(n = n_1 = \cdots = n_k\) except for \(n = 3,7\) and \(p = 2\) is due to [\textit{G. Carlsson}, Invent. Math. 69, 393--400, (1982; Zbl 0517.57020)] and [\textit{A. Adem} and \textit{W. Browder}, ibid. 92, No. 2, 431--440, (1988; Zbl 0644.57022)]. \textit{B. Hanke} [ibid. 178, No. 2, 265--298, (2009; Zbl 1177.57028)] proved the case \(p \geq 3 \cdot \dim (X)\). There are three main ingredients in the proof of the main theorem. A theorem of Browder gives restrictions on the order of \(G\) in terms of the exponents of the cohomology of \(G\) with coefficients in the homology of \(X\). A method of Habegger is used to replace the homology of \(X\) by the homology of a certain chain complex \(D_{\ast}\) obtained from \(C_{\ast} (X)\) by gluing homology groups of different dimensions via syzygies. Finally a result of Pakianathan about the exponents of cohomology groups of elementary abelian \(p\)-groups is employed to estimate the exponents of the cohomology of \(G\) with coefficients in the homology of \(D_{\ast}\).