Note on the cohomology of finite cyclic coverings (Q387967)

Let \(E\to B\) be a normal cyclic \(p\)-fold covering in which \(B\) is path-connected and \(p\) is an arbitrary prime number. In the paper under review, the authors introduce the \textit{height} of such a covering as \[ h(E)=\max\{\text{\(n\), such that \(H^n(\rho): H^n(BC_p;\mathbb{Z}/p)\to H^n(B;\mathbb{Z}/p)\) is non trivial}\}, \] where \(C_p\) is the cyclic \(p\)-group and \(\rho: B\to BC_p\) is the classifying map of the given covering. Then, generalizing a result of Kozlov for \(p=2\) in a highly non trivial fashion, the authors prove that \[ H^{h(E)}(E;\mathbb{Z}/p)\not=0. \] After that, interesting approximations of \(h(E)\) in terms of Lusternik-Schnirelmann invariants are also given. Explicitly, \[ h(E)=\text{wgt}(\rho;\mathbb{Z}/p)\leq\text{cat}\,\rho \leq\text{cat}\,B, \] where wgt is the category weight introduced by Y. B. Rudyak and J. Strom and cat is the classical Lusternik-Schnirelmann category.