Twisted homological stability for configuration spaces

Abstract: Let M be an open, connected manifold. A classical theorem of McDuff and Segal states that the sequence of configuration spaces of n unordered, distinct points in M is homologically stable with coefficients in Z: in each degree, the integral homology is eventually independent of n. The purpose of this note is to prove that this phenomenon also holds for homology with twisted coefficients. We first define an appropriate notion of finite-degree twisted coefficient system for configuration spaces and then use a spectral sequence argument to deduce the result from the untwisted homological stability result of McDuff and Segal. The result and the methods are generalisations of those of Betley for the symmetric groups.

Review text

Let \(M\) be an open, connected manifold with \(\mathrm{dim}(M)\geq 2\) and let \(X\) be a path-connected space. The configuration space of \(n\) unordered points in \(M\) with labels in \(X\) is \(C_n(M,X):= (\mathrm{Emb}(n,M) \times X^n)/\Sigma_n\), where \(\mathrm{Emb}(n,M)\) is the subspace of \(M^n\) such that no two points coincide. There is a well-defined stabilisation map \(C_n(M,X)\to C_{n+1}(M,X)\) inducing an isomorphism on integral homology in degrees \(\leq \frac{n}{2}\), and a split-injective map on homology in all degrees. This phenomenon is called homologically stable with coefficients in \(\mathbb{Z}\), studied by McDuff, Segal, et al. The main result of the paper under review is to show that \(C_n(M,X)\) is homologically stable with twisted coefficients. More precisely, a twisted coefficient system of degree \(d\) for the sequence \(\{C_n(M,X)\}\) is defined to be a functor from a certain category \(\mathcal{B}(M,X)\) to the category \(Ab\) of abelian groups satisfying a certain finiteness condition. It includes a \(\pi_1(C_n(M,X))\)-module \(T_n\) for each \(n\), and that the stabilisation map \(C_n(M,X)\to C_{n+1}(M,X)\) induces a natural map \[ \phi: H_*(C_n(M,X);T_n)\to H_*(C_{n+1}(M,X);T_{n+1}) \] The author of the paper under review shows that the map \(\phi\) is an isomorphism in degrees \(\leq \frac{n-d}{2}\) and is split-injective in all degrees.

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