Orders of the canonical vector bundles over configuration spaces of finite graphs (Q2121395)

The configuration space of a graph \(X\) is defined as follows: \(Conf(X,n)= \{ x_1, x_2, \dots, x_n) \in X \times \dots \times X \mid x_i \neq x_j \mbox{ for } i \neq j\}\) and the symmetric group \(\Sigma_n\) acts freely on \(Conf(X,n)\) by permuting the factors, and since \(\Sigma_n\) acts on \(\mathbb{R}^n\) by permuting the coordinates, there is an associated vector bundle \[\xi_{X,n}: \mathbb{R}^n \rightarrow Conf(X,n) \times_{\Sigma_n} \mathbb{R}^n \rightarrow Conf(X,n)/\Sigma_n\] The order of a vector bundle \(o(\xi)\) is the smallest \(n\) (if it exists) such that the Whitney sum \(\xi ^{\oplus n}\) is trivial. Both the order and stable order of a vector bundle are in general not easy to determine. The authors use Abram's discrete model for configuration spaces together with the lemma: Let \(n\) and \(m\) be two positive integers such that \(n \leq m\). For two complexes \(X\) and \(Y\), suppose there exists a \(\Sigma_n\)-equivariant map \(Conf(X, n) \rightarrow Conf(Y, m)\), where \(\Sigma_n\) acts on \(Conf(Y, m)\) through a group monomorphism \(\Sigma_n \subset \Sigma_m\). Then \(s(\xi_{X,n}) \leq s(\xi_{Y,m})\). Moreover, if further \(m = n\) then \(o(\xi_{X,n}) \leq o(\xi_{Y,m})\). to prove the Theorem: Let \(\Gamma\) be a finite graph and \(n \geq 2\) \begin{itemize} \item[1.] if \(\Gamma\) is homeomorphic to a point, or a closed interval, or a disjoint union of finitely many of them; or if \(\Gamma\) is homeomorphic to a circle with \(n\) odd, then \(s(\xi_{\Gamma,n})=o(\xi_{\Gamma,n})=1\) \item[2.] if \(\Gamma\) is planar but does not belong to case (1), then \(s(\xi_{\Gamma,n})=o(\xi_{\Gamma,n})=2\) \item[3.] if \(\Gamma\) is non-planar, then \(s(\xi_{\Gamma,n})=o(\xi_{\Gamma,n})=4\). \end{itemize} For the planar case, the authors use the fact that \(o (\xi_{\mathbb{R}^n,2})=2\) and consider separately the cases when \(\Gamma\) is a cycle, or when \(\Gamma\) contains the graph \(K_{1,3}\). For the non-planar case the authors use the fact that every non-planar graph contains Kuratowski graphs, which are subdivisions of the complete graph \(K_5\) and the complete bipartite graph \(K_{3,3}\), and have well studied configuration spaces which for \(n=2\) are orientable surfaces. Finally the last section of the paper contains an application to the stable homotopy types of generalized divided powers. I did however notice two typing errors: The first one is in Theorem 1 where the second item should say ``if \(\Gamma\) is planar but does not belong to case 1'', and the second one is in Remark 2.4, which is about \(\xi_{K,2}\) instead of \(\xi_{S^1,2}\).