Functorial homotopy decompositions of looped co-\(H\) spaces (Q627469)

A product decomposition at the level of spaces \(X\simeq A\times B\) induces a coalgebra decomposition at the level of homology \(H_*(X)\cong H_*(A)\otimes H_*(B)\). Here one takes homology with mod-\(p\) coefficients and so at the space level one restricts attention to \(p\)-localized homotopy decompositions. Whether a homology decomposition can be realized at the space level is a key problem which is resolved in this paper for simply connected co-\(H\) spaces of finite type. The homology of the loop space \(\Omega Y\) of any such co-\(H\) space \(Y\) is a tensor algebra on the desuspension of \(\tilde H_*(Y)\). One writes \(T(V)\) for the tensor algebra generated by the vector space \(V\). In [Mem. Am. Math. Soc. 701, 109 p. (2000; Zbl 0964.55012)], the first and the third author of the paper under review showed that for \(Y\) a suspension, functorial coalgebra decompositions of tensor algebras give rise to functorial decompositions for \(\Omega Y\). This was generalized in the authors' paper [Can. J. Math. 58, No.~4, 877--896 (2006; Zbl 1105.55004)] to loop spaces of \textit{coassociative} co-\(H\) spaces based in particular on the fact that the co-\(H\) structure map \(Y\rightarrow\Sigma\Omega Y\) is a co-\(H\) map. In the paper at hand, the authors show that the coassociativity hypothesis can be removed essentially by showing that it is enough to have maps which induce idempotents in homology. In general one must deal with the fact that the isomorphism \(H_*(\Omega Y) \cong T(\Sigma^{-1}\tilde H_*(Y))\) is an isomorphism of algebras but not of Hopf algebras. It is possible to give formulae that measure the deviation from a Hopf algebra isomorphism in the case of a coassociative co-\(H\) space [ref. \textit{I. Berstein}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 115, 257--259 (1965; Zbl 0134.42404)]. But when \(Y\) fails to be coassociative, the coalgebra structure on \(H_*(\Omega Y)\) can be very complex. In this paper the authors go around this problem by filtering \(H_*(\Omega Y)\) by the augmentation ideal filtration and working with the associated graded module. The main result in this paper is given as a ``geometric realization theorem'' which states that for any simply connected co-\(H\) space of finite type, and for \(T(V)\cong A(V)\otimes B(V)\) any natural coalgebra decomposition of a tensor algebra over \({\mathbb Z}/p\), there exist homotopy functors \(\bar A\) and \(\bar B\) from the category of co-\(H\) spaces and co-\(H\) maps to \(p\)-localized spaces such that functorially \(\Omega Y\) splits as the product \(\bar A(Y)\times \bar B(Y)\). A mod-\(p\) homology decomposition for \(H_*(\Omega Y)\) is also obtained with respect to the augmentation ideal filtration. Minimal functorial homotopy retracts of looped co-\(H\) spaces induced from the existence of a minimal coalgebra retract of \(T(\Sigma^{-1}\tilde H_*(Y; {\mathbb Z}/p))\) are then described.