The homology of the Higman-Thompson groups (Q2417971)

This paper fully computes the homology of the Higman-Thompson groups, \(V_{n,r}\) for \(n\geq 2\) and \(r\geq 1\). The case \(V_{2,1}=V\) corresponds to the classical Thompson group. An old question about these homology groups is whether they are acyclic or not. The Main Theorem of this paper is that \(V\) is indeed acyclic and for \(n\geq 3\) the groups \(V_{n,r}\) are rationally acyclic but not integrally acyclic. The main technique to prove these results is by identifying the homology of the groups \(V_{n,r}\) with that of the zero-th component of an \((n-1)\)-Moore space \(\Omega^{\infty}_{0}\mathbb{M}_{n-1}\). Next, in order to compute the homology of the later, the authors identify \(\mathbb{M}_{n-1}\) with the algebraic \(K\)-theory spectrum of a suitable Cantor category associated to these Higman-Thompson groups.