Combinatorics of orbit configuration spaces (Q2632715)

Given a finite group \(G\) acting on a topological space \(X\), the \(n\)-fold orbit configuration space \(\operatorname{Conf}^{\, G}_n(X)\) is the subspace of \(X^n\) consisting of points whose components lie in distinct orbits. Special cases of interest include ordinary configuration spaces of manifolds, finite graphs or simplicial complexes, and orbit configuration spaces of finite cyclic groups acting on \(\mathbb{C}\), \(\mathbb{C}^\times\), or complex elliptic curves. The space \(\operatorname{Conf}^{\, G}_n(X)\) supports an action of the wreath product of \(G\) with the symmetric group \(S_n\), giving rise to families of representations on the homology of these spaces. The paper under review is a short exposition, focused on combinatorial aspects, of the authors' recent work [``A generating function approach to new representation stability phenomena in orbit configuration spaces'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1911.02125}] establishing general stability results for these representations. It is assumed the action is almost free, that is, the set \(S\subseteq X\) of points with nontrivial isotropy is finite. The results in the paper cited above apply to \(\operatorname{Conf}^{\, G}_n(X \setminus T)\) for \(X\) a Hausdorff space or separated scheme with almost free \(G\) action, and \(T \subseteq X\) finite and \(G\)-invariant. To simplify the discussion, in the present article \(X\) is assumed to be a manifold, and attention is focused on the free \(G\)-space \(X\setminus S\). The complement of \(\operatorname{Conf}^{\, G}_n(X\setminus S)\) in \(X^n\) is an arrangement \(\mathcal{A}_n(G,X)\) of subspaces of \(X^n\), which locally looks like an arrangement of linear hyperplanes. The embedding yields a spectral sequence converging to the Borel-Moore homology of \(\operatorname{Conf}^{\, G}_n(X\setminus S)\) with \(E^2\) page expressed in terms of homology of intervals in the poset of layers, or connected strata, of \(\mathcal{A}_n(G,X)\). This poset is isomorphic to a poset \(\mathcal{D}_n(G,S)\) of pairs \((\tilde{\beta},z)\) consisting of a partial partition \(\beta\) of \(\{1, \ldots, n\}\) equipped with \(G\)-colorings of the blocks, and an \(S\)-coloring \(z\) of the remaining elements. The classical partition and Dowling lattices are special cases; in the general case intervals in \(\mathcal{D}_n(G,S)\) are products of partition and Dowling lattices. All of this is elucidated with a running example and proof sketches. The last section presents the representation stability result in this special case. The \(n\) natural projections \(X^n \to X^{n-1}\) respect the group actions. Composites of these deletion maps yield on the family \(\mathcal{D}_\bullet(G,S)=\coprod_n \mathcal{D}_n(G,S)\) the structure of a module over a certain category \(FI_G\), which enables formulation and proof of representation stability via finite-generation properties of this module. Editorial remark: This is an extended abstract of [\textit{C. Bibby} and \textit{N. Gadish}, Int. Math. Res. Not. 2022, No. 9, 6903--6947 (2022; Zbl 1497.55024)].