Discrete approximations for complex Kac-Moody groups (Q471678)

Cohomological approximations for Lie groups by related discrete groups were developed by Quillen, Milnor, Friedlander and Mislin. In the paper under review, the author generalizes these results to the case of complex Kac-Moody groups. The main theorem states that if \(K\) is a topological complex Kac-Moody group and \(K(\bar {\mathbb F}_p)\) is the value of the corresponding discrete Kac-Moody group functor, then there exists a map \(BK(\bar{\mathbb F}_p) \to BK\) that is an isomorphism on homology with \(\mathbb F_q\) coefficients for any \(q\neq p\). This theorem is proved by extending Friedlander and Mislin's maps between the classifying spaces of appropriate reductive subgroups of discrete and topological Kac-Moody groups to a map between the full classifying spaces of Kac-Moody groups. This extension uses a new homology decomposition of a discrete Kac-Moody group over a field away from the ambient characteristic. As an application of the main theorem, the author constructs unstable Adams operations for Kac-Moody groups. Let \(K\) be a topological Kac-Moody group over \(\mathbb C\) with Weyl group \(W\). Then the Frobenius map induces \(p\)th \(q\)-local unstable Adams operations \(\psi: BK^{\wedge}_q \to BK^{\wedge}_q\) for any prime \(q\neq p\). Moreover, if there is no element of order \(p\) in \(W\), then these local unstable Adams operations can be assembled into a global unstable Adams operation \(\psi: BK \to BK\).