Homological stability for automorphism groups (Q2401699)

The aim of the paper under review is to prove homology stability for several distinct families of groups \(G_n\), which include the following examples: \newline - symmetric groups \(\Sigma_n\) (Theorems D, E); \newline -- braid groups \(\beta_n\) and surface braid groups \(\beta^S_n\) (Theorems D, F); \newline -- automorphisms of free groups \(\mathrm{Aut}(F_n)\) (Theorem G); \newline -- general linear groups \(\mathrm{GL}_n(R)\) over associative rings (Theorem 5.11); \newline -- hyperbolic unitary groups \(\mathrm{U}^\epsilon_n(R, \Lambda)\) over form rings (Theorem H); \newline -- mapping class groups of surfaces (Theorem I); \newline -- mapping class groups of 3-manifolds (Theorem J). The property shared by the above families of groups is that they all can be realized as automorphism groups of objects \(A\oplus X^{\oplus n}, n \in \mathbb{N}\) for some choice of objects \(A, X \in Ob(\mathcal{G})\) in some braided monoidal groupoid \((\mathcal{G}, \oplus, 0)\). A key feature of the present paper is that the homology stability problem is solved not only for trivial coefficients but also for \textit{abelian coefficient modules} and \textit{twisted polynomial coefficient systems} (see Sections 3 and 4.4, respectively). For example, sign representations of symmetric groups \(\Sigma_n\) can be made into an abelian coefficient module, while Burau representations of braid groups are an example of a polynomial coefficient system of degree 1. The language of braided monoidal groupoids and closely related \textit{pre-braided homogeneous categories} is used to both define the twisted coefficient systems and formulate the general Theorems 3.1, 3.4, 4.20 reducing the original question of homology stability to proving that certain semisimplicial sets \(W_n(A, X)\), called \textit{spaces of destabilisations}, are highly connected. This categorical approach allows the authors to treat the problem of homology stability with constant and twisted coefficients simultaneously, and thus, leads to a number of new results on stability with twisted coefficients for the families of groups mentioned above.