Periodic complexes and group actions (Q5953606)

A space is said to have periodic cohomology if there is a cohomology class \(\alpha\), of positive degree, such that taking cup products with \(\alpha\) gives an isomorphism in sufficiently high degrees. The main result of this paper is a homotopy-theoretic characterization of CW-complexes which have periodic cohomology. The authors enumerate many interesting applications of this. For example, a discrete group has periodic cohomology if, and only if, the group acts freely and properly on a finite dimensional complex that is homotopy equivalent to a sphere. And a finite \(p\)-group acts freely on a finite complex homotopy equivalent to a product of two spheres if, and only if, the group does not contain a subgroup isomorphic to \({\mathbb Z}/p \times {\mathbb Z}/p \times {\mathbb Z}/p\).