Representation stability for homotopy groups of configuration spaces

Abstract: We prove that the dual rational homotopy groups of the configuration spaces of a 1-connected manifold of dimension at least 3 are uniformly representation stable in the sense of Church, and that their derived dual integral homotopy groups are finitely-generated as FI-modules in the sense of Church-Ellenberg-Farb. This is a consequence of a more general theorem relating properties of the cohomology groups of a 1-connected co-FI-space to properties of its dual homotopy groups. We also discuss several other applications.

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Let FI be the category of finite sets and injections. An FI-\(\mathbb{Z}\)-module is a functor from FI to the category of abelian groups and a co-FI-space is a contravariant functor from FI to the category of topological spaces. In this paper the authors establish a general result (Theorem 1.5) for \(1\)-connected co-FI-spaces \(X\) of finite type: the cohomology groups \(H^i(X;\mathbb{Z})\) are finitely generated FI-\(\mathbb{Z}\)-modules for all \(i\) if and only if so are the dual homotopy groups \(\text{Hom}_{\mathbb{Z}}(\pi_n(X),\mathbb{Z})\) and \(\text{Ext}^1_{\mathbb{Z}}(\pi_n(X),\mathbb{Z})\) for all \(i\). They apply this result to the cohomology groups of ordered configuration spaces, which were proved to be finitely generated as FI-\(\mathbb{Z}\)-modules in [\textit{T. Church} et al., Geom. Topol. 18, No. 5, 2951--2984 (2014; Zbl 1344.20016)], to obtain the results that we now describe. Let \(M\) be a \(1\)-connected manifold of dimension at least \(3\) and let \(C_k(M)\) be the unordered configuration space of \(k\) points in the manifold \(M\). The fundamental group \(\pi_1(C_k(M))\) is isomorphic to the symmetric group \(S_k\) and its action on the higher homotopy groups \(\pi_i(C_k(M))\) \(i\geq 2\) agrees with the \(S_k\)-action on \(\pi_i(F_k(M))\) induced by the action of \(S_k\) on the ordered configuration space \(F_k(M)\) by permuting the ordering of the points. In Theorem 1.3 the authors obtain that, for \(i\geq2\), the FI-\(\mathbb{Z}\)-modules \(\text{Hom}_{\mathbb{Z}}(\pi_i(C_k(M)),\mathbb{Z})\) and \(\text{Ext}^1_{\mathbb{Z}}(\pi_i(C_k(M)),\mathbb{Z})\) are finitely generated. Furthermore, working over \(\mathbb{Q}\), they prove (Theorem 1.2) that the dual rational homotopy groups \(\text{Hom}_{\mathbb{Z}}(\pi_n(M),\mathbb{Q})\) are representation stable in the sense of [\textit{T. Church} and \textit{B. Farb}, Adv. Math. 245, 250--314 (2013; Zbl 1300.20051)] with stable range \(k\geq 4(i-1)\). The stable range can be improved to \(k\geq 2(i-1)\) for non-compact manifolds \(M\). Other applications of Theorem 1.5 include the free Lie and Gerstenhaber algebras.

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