\(E_n\)-cell attachments and a local-to-global principle for homological stability (Q681623)

The authors study topological chiral homology, also known as factorization homology, and its links to homological stability. Just like standard homology gives invariants for topological spaces with coefficients in a commutative ring, topological chiral homology gives invariants for (\(n\)-)manifolds with coefficients in a coherently homotopy commutative algebra, i.e. an \(E_n\)-algebra. An example relevant to this paper is the topological chiral homology of a manifold with coefficients in a free \(E_n\)-algebra on one generator: it is given by the disjoint union of the (unordered) configuration spaces of the manifold, \[ \int_M \text{Free}_{E_n} \simeq \bigsqcup_{k \geq 0} C_k(M). \] Another example would be the topological chiral homology with coefficients in a coherently fully homotopy commutative algebra (\(E_\infty\)), which produces higher Hochschild homology. Homological stability is the statement that as \(k\) grows in the expression above, the homology of the \(k\)th connected component stabilizes: for a noncompact manifold and in a range depending on \(k\) (becoming bigger as \(k\) increases), the map \(H_*(C_k(M)) \to H_*(C_{k+1}(M))\) is an isomorphism. This decomposition into connected components comes from the decomposition \(\text{Free}_{E_n} \simeq \bigsqcup_{k \geq 0} C_k(\mathbb{R}^n)\), and these components satisfy homological stability themselves. The authors prove that this observation hides a deeper fact. Given an \(E_n\)-algebra \(A\) decomposed into \(\mathbb{N}\)-many connected components, their main theorem states that the following propositions are equivalent: 1. the connected components of \(A\) satisfy homological stability; 2. the topological chiral homology of any noncompact manifold with coefficients in \(A\) satisfies homological stability (thus justifying the name ``local to global principle''); 3. the \(E_n\)-algebra \(A\) is obtained by attaching a finite number of ``\(E_n\)-cells'' in each degree and connected component. The theorem is proved for most kinds of tangential structures (e.g. framed, oriented, spin, etc., but not unoriented as \(O(n)\) is disconnected), and an extension of the theorem, stating that the scanning map is homologically stable for framed connected manifolds, is proved. Finally, applications of the theorem are given to prove homological stability for bounded symmetric powers, divisor spaces of projective spaces, and completions of partial monoids.