On the classifying space of the family of virtually cyclic subgroups (Q448504)

Let \(G\) be a group. A collection \(\mathcal{F}\) of subgroups of \(G\) is called a family if it is closed under taking subgroups and conjugation by elements of \(G\). A \(G\)-\(CW\) complex \(X\) is a model for the universal space for the family \(\mathcal{F}\) if the fixed point set \(X^H\) is contractible for all \(H\in\mathcal{F}\) and empty for all \(H\not\in\mathcal{F}\). These universal spaces exist for any \(G\) and are unique up to \(G\)-homotopy. A model for the family \(\mathcal{F}\) is denoted by \(E_{\mathcal{F}}G\). Let \(\mathcal{F}\) and \(\mathcal{G}\) be two families of \(G\) such that \(\mathcal{F}\subset\mathcal{G}\). The authors provide a procedure to build a model of \(E_{\mathcal{G}}\) out of a model of \(E_{\mathcal{F}}\). After this, the authors specialize to the case of the families of finite subgroups (\(\mathcal{FIN}\)) and virtually cyclic subgroups (\(\mathcal{VC}\)). Let \( \underline{E}G\) and \( \underline{\underline{E}}G\) be the corresponding models for universal spaces of these families. A group \(G\) satisfies the (\(M_{\mathcal{FIN}\subset \mathcal{VC}}\)) condition if every infinite virtually cyclic subgroup \(H\) is contained in a unique maximal infinite virtually cyclic subgroup \(H_{max}\). The authors prove that for a group satisfying the (\(M_{\mathcal{FIN}\subset \mathcal{VC}}\)) condition, it follows that \[ hdim^G(\underline{\underline{E}}G)\leq hdim^G( \underline{E}G) +1, \] where \(hdim^G(E_{\mathcal{F}})\) is the minimal dimension of a \(G\)-\(CW\) universal model \(E_{\mathcal{F}}\). The authors give a precise calculation of \(hdim^G(\underline{\underline{E}}G)\) in the case of virtually \(\mathbb{Z}\)-groups and explore other examples.