Homological stability for automorphism groups

DOI10.1016/J.AIM.2017.07.022MaRDI QIDQ2401699zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Oscar Randal-Williams, Nathalie Wahl

Publication date 4 September 2017

Published in Advances in Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1409.3541, https://curis.ku.dk/portal/da/publications/homological-stability-for-automorphism-groups(4d8ec8f6-2666-46af-a708-66c5ef54228f).html

zbMATH Keywords

automorphism groups braid groups general linear groups homological stability mapping class groups unitary groups

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Stability for linear groups (19B14) Free nonabelian groups (20E05) Cohomology theory for linear algebraic groups (20G10) Linear algebraic groups over adèles and other rings and schemes (20G35) Groupoids (i.e. small categories in which all morphisms are isomorphisms) (20L05) General low-dimensional topology (57M99)

Abstract: Given a family of groups admitting a braided monoidal structure (satisfying mild assumptions) we construct a family of spaces on which the groups act and whose connectivity yields, via a classical argument of Quillen, homological stability for the family of groups. We show that stability also holds with both polynomial and abelian twisted coefficients, with no further assumptions. This new construction of a family of spaces from a family of groups recovers known spaces in the classical examples of stable families of groups, such as the symmetric groups, general linear groups and mapping class groups. By making systematic the proofs of classical stability results, we show that they all hold with the same type of coefficient systems, obtaining in particular without any further work new stability theorems with twisted coefficients for the symmetric groups, braid groups, automorphisms of free groups, unitary groups, mapping class groups of non-orientable surfaces and mapping class groups of 3-manifolds. Our construction can also be applied to families of groups not considered before in the context of homological stability. As a byproduct of our work, we construct the braided analogue of the category FI of finite sets and injections relevant to the present context, and define polynomiality for functors in the context of pre-braided monoidal categories.

Review text

The aim of the paper under review is to prove homology stability for several distinct families of groups \(G_n\), which include the following examples: \newline - symmetric groups \(\Sigma_n\) (Theorems D, E); \newline -- braid groups \(\beta_n\) and surface braid groups \(\beta^S_n\) (Theorems D, F); \newline -- automorphisms of free groups \(\mathrm{Aut}(F_n)\) (Theorem G); \newline -- general linear groups \(\mathrm{GL}_n(R)\) over associative rings (Theorem 5.11); \newline -- hyperbolic unitary groups \(\mathrm{U}^\epsilon_n(R, \Lambda)\) over form rings (Theorem H); \newline -- mapping class groups of surfaces (Theorem I); \newline -- mapping class groups of 3-manifolds (Theorem J). The property shared by the above families of groups is that they all can be realized as automorphism groups of objects \(A\oplus X^{\oplus n}, n \in \mathbb{N}\) for some choice of objects \(A, X \in Ob(\mathcal{G})\) in some braided monoidal groupoid \((\mathcal{G}, \oplus, 0)\). A key feature of the present paper is that the homology stability problem is solved not only for trivial coefficients but also for \textit{abelian coefficient modules} and \textit{twisted polynomial coefficient systems} (see Sections 3 and 4.4, respectively). For example, sign representations of symmetric groups \(\Sigma_n\) can be made into an abelian coefficient module, while Burau representations of braid groups are an example of a polynomial coefficient system of degree 1. The language of braided monoidal groupoids and closely related \textit{pre-braided homogeneous categories} is used to both define the twisted coefficient systems and formulate the general Theorems 3.1, 3.4, 4.20 reducing the original question of homology stability to proving that certain semisimplicial sets \(W_n(A, X)\), called \textit{spaces of destabilisations}, are highly connected. This categorical approach allows the authors to treat the problem of homology stability with constant and twisted coefficients simultaneously, and thus, leads to a number of new results on stability with twisted coefficients for the families of groups mentioned above.

Recommendations

Cites work

Cited in

(73)

This page was built for publication: Homological stability for automorphism groups

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q2401699)