Resolutions of moduli spaces and homological stability (Q2633995)

A classical result of \textit{J. Harer} [Ann. Math. (2) 121, 215--249 (1985; Zbl 0579.57005)] established that the mapping class groups of orientable surfaces satisfy \textit{homological stability}: the natural homomorphisms between mapping class groups, induced by inclusion of surfaces, give isomorphisms in homology in a range that tends to infinity with the genera of the surfaces. Since then, several authors have improved the stability ranges and the result has been generalised to include other variants of mapping class groups and moduli spaces. This paper establishes a general set-up that proves homological stability for moduli spaces of surfaces with tangential structures. In particular, the author recovers homological stability for mapping class groups of orientable and non-orientable surfaces and improves the known stable ranges. Moreover, this setting is applied by the author in [J. Topol. 7, No. 1, 155--186 (2014; Zbl 1322.55006)] to obtain homological stability for new examples: moduli spaces with tangential structures given by framings, \(r\)-Spin structures and Pin\(^\pm\) structures. A \textit{tangential structure} is a continuous map \(\theta:B\rightarrow BO(2)\), where \(B\) is a path-connected space. Examples of tangential structures considered include: the identity \(BO(2)\rightarrow BO(2)\), the double cover \(BSO(2)\rightarrow BO(2)\), the bundle \(BSpin(2)\rightarrow BO(2)\), etc. A \textit{\(\theta\)-structure} on a surface \(F\) is a bundle map \(TF\rightarrow \theta^*\gamma_2\), where the bundle \(\theta^*\gamma_2\rightarrow B\) is given by the pull back from the universal bundle \(\gamma_2\rightarrow BO(2)\) via \(\theta\). The \textit{moduli space \(\mathcal{M}^\theta(F)\) of \(\theta\)-structures} on a closed surface \(F\) is the homotopy quotient by Diff\((F)\) of the space of bundle maps \(TF \rightarrow \theta^*\gamma_2\). For compact surfaces \(F\) with boundary the bundle maps are considered relative to a fixed boundary condition \(\ell_{\partial F}\) and the notation \(\mathcal{M}^\theta(F,\ell_{\partial F})\) is used. Given \(F\) a collared surface, the author considers \(K\) a cobordism from \(\partial F\) to a \(1\)-manifold \(\partial F'\) and \(\ell_K\) a \(\theta\)-structure on \(K\). Then a \textit{stabilisation map} from \(F\) to the surface \(F':=F\cup_{\partial F} K\) can be defined \[ (K,\ell_K)_*:\mathcal{M}^\theta(F,\ell_{\partial F})\rightarrow \mathcal{M}^\theta(F',\ell_{\partial F'}), \] where \(\ell_{\partial F}\) and \(\ell_{\partial F}'\) are induced from \(\ell_K\). The main qualitative result (Theorem 1.2) establishes that under these maps the homology groups \(H_i(\mathcal{M}^\theta(F))\) stabilise once the genus of \(F\) is large enough. The orientable and non-orientable cases are stated separately and quantitative results are also obtained (Theorems 7.1 and 7.2, respectively).