Equivariant dimensions of groups with operators (Q2102729)

Let \(\Gamma\) be a discrete group. There are different finiteness properties associated to \(\Gamma\), namely: geometric dimension, \(gd(\Gamma)\), cohomological dimension, \(cd(\Gamma)\), and Lusternik-Schnirelmann category, \(\mathrm{cat}(\Gamma)\), of its classifying space. Moreover, let \(\mathcal{F}\) be a family of subgroups of \(\Gamma\), the above notions have been pushed to consider these families to define the \(\mathcal{F}\)-geometric dimension, \(gd_{\mathcal{F}}(\Gamma)\) and \(\mathcal{F}\)-cohomological dimension,\(cd_{\mathcal{F}}(\Gamma)\). The purpose of this work is to define the above notions in the following setup. Let \(\pi\) be a discrete group and \(G\) be a finite group that acts on \(\pi\) by automorphisms. This action defines the semidirect product \(\pi \rtimes G\). Let \(\mathcal{G}\) be the family of subgroups of \(\pi \rtimes G\) generated by the subgroup \(1\times G\subset \pi \rtimes G\). This gives the following finiteness notions for a \(G\)-group \(\pi\). The equivariant geometric dimension \(gd_{G}(\pi):=gd_{\mathcal{G}}(\pi\rtimes G)\), the equivariant cohomological dimension \(cd_{G}(\pi):=cd_{\mathcal{G}}(\pi\rtimes G)\). Furthermore, the Lusternik-Schnirelmann category, \(LS\), of the \(G\)-group \(\pi\) is defined as \(\mathrm{cat}_{G}(\pi):=\mathrm{cat}_{G}(E_{\mathcal{G}}(\pi\rtimes G)/\pi)\), where \(E_{\mathcal{G}}(\pi\rtimes G)\) is a model for a \(\mathcal{G}\)-universal space for \(\pi\rtimes G\). The main results of this work are analogues of Eilenberg-Ganea and Stallings-Swan theorems, namely \textbf{Theorem 1.4}: Let \(\pi\) be a discrete \(G\) group, where \(G\) is finite. Then, we have the following inequalities: \[ cd_{G}(\pi)\leq \mathrm{cat}_{G}(\pi)\leq gd_{G}(\pi)\leq \sup\{3,cd_{G}(\pi)\}. \] Moreover, if \(cd_{G}(\pi)=2\) then \(\mathrm{cat}_{G}(\pi)=2\). The next result characterises groups where these invariants coincide and are equal to \(1\). \textbf{Theorem 1.5}: Let \(\pi\) be a discrete \(G\)-group with \(G\) finite. Then, the following are equivalent: \((1)\ gd_{G}(\pi)=1, (2)\ \mathrm{cat}_{G}(\pi)=1, (3)\ cd_{G}(\pi)=1\) and \((4)\ \pi\) is a non-trivial free group with basis a \(G\)-set.