Homological stability for spaces of embedded surfaces (Q2356948)

This paper studies homological properties of the moduli space \(\mathcal{E}^+(\Sigma_g, M)\) of genus \(g\) oriented surfaces \(\Sigma_g\) in a fixed manifold \(M\). The space \(\mathcal{E}^+(\Sigma_g, M)\) is defined as the quotient of the space of embeddings Emb\((\Sigma_g,M)\) (with the \(C^\infty\) topology) by the action of the group of orientation preserving diffeomorphisms Diff\(_+(\Sigma_g)\). The authors construct a ``scanning map'' that compares this space with a space of formal surfaces in \(M\) (a space of sections of a certain bundle associated to the tangent bundle of \(M\)). Theorem 1.1 of the paper states that, if \(M\) is simply connected of dimension at least \(5\), this map induces an isomorphism in integral homology in degrees smaller than or equal to \(\frac{1}{3}(2g-2).\) This result can be regarded as the \(2\)-dimensional analog to \textit{D. McDuff}'s theorem for configuration spaces (spaces of embedded \(0\)-submanifolds) [Topology 14, 91--107 (1975; Zbl 0296.57001)]. In order to prove Theorem 1.1 the authors prove Theorem 1.3, a homological stability result analogous to \textit{J. Harer}'s result [Ann. Math. (2) 121, 215--249 (1985; Zbl 0579.57005)] and Theorem 1.4, a result analogous to the \textit{Madsen-Weiss} theorem [\textit{I. Madsen} and \textit{M. Weiss}, ibid. (2) 165, No. 3, 843--941(2007; Zbl 1156.14021)], which identifies the stable homology of these spaces of surfaces. To obtain these results the authors must consider surfaces with boundary and a scanning map for surfaces with boundary.