Classifying spaces with virtually cyclic stabilizers for linear groups (Q2353483)

Constructions of classifying spaces for groups with stabilizers in a family have become important after many instances of the Farrell-Jones conjecture have been established. The conjecture relates the algebraic K-theory of a group ring for a group to the equivariant homology of such space. Of particular interest is the family of virtually cyclic subgroups since the Farrell-Jones conjecture is proposed to always hold true for this family. From the computational perspective, it is valuable to construct classifying spaces for groups with stabilizers in a family with some finiteness properties. The authors do that in this paper for discrete subgroups of the general liner group over real numbers. They illustrate the construction in the case of the integral special linear group \(\mathrm{SL}_3 (\mathbb{Z})\). Since the Farrell-Jones conjecture is known for linear groups, this allows the authors to write down a decomposition of the \(K\)-theory of this group. These explicit computations are consequences of a general theorem for groups with finite dimensional Zariski closure in the general linear group.