On the second stable homotopy group of the Eilenberg-Maclane space and the Schur Multiplier

Abstract: We prove that for a finitely generated group

G

, the second stable homotopy group

p i_{2}^{S} (K (G, 1))

of the Eilenberg-Maclane space

K (G, 1)

is completely determined by the Schur multiplier

H_{2} (G)

. We also prove that the second stable homotopy group

p i_{2}^{S} (K (G, 1))

is equal to the Schur multiplier

H_{2} (G)

for a torsion group

G

with no elements of order

2

and show that for such groups,

p i_{2}^{S} (K (G, 1))

is a direct factor of

p i_{3} (S K (G, 1))

, where

S

denotes suspension and

p i_{2}^{S}

the second stable homotopy group. We compute

p i_{3} (S K (G, 1))

and

p i_{2}^{S} (K (G, 1))

for symmetric, alternating, general linear groups over finite fields and some infinite general linear groups

G

. We also obtain a bound for the Schur multiplier of all finite groups

G

analogous to Green's bound for

p

-groups.

This page was built for publication: On the second stable homotopy group of the Eilenberg-Maclane space and the Schur Multiplier